Category: Essays

Boyle-O-Rama

~ Deb ~ 1 Comment

If you don’t yet know who Susan Boyle is, crawl out from under your rock, go to Youtube, watch all seven minutes of her “Britain’s Got Talent” audition, then come back to this page and continue reading.   A dowdy, 47-year-old, never-been-kissed Scottish woman has turned the entertainment world on its ear and elicited a genuine grin from Simon Cowell.  I believe hell might have frozen over for a few minutes there as well.

Three years ago it was Paul Potts, the British cell phone salesman in need of dental work who opened his mouth on that same stage and made folks across England look twice at their tellies and inquire, “Luciano?”  And now we have Susan Boyle, a woman who could probably sell out a U.S. tour in a matter of moments right now, yet completely unknown just two weeks ago.

What shall we make of this?

Well, I have a theory (you knew it was coming, didn’t you).  Actually my theory is two-fold.  First, I think this phenomenon might have something to do with the aging baby-boomer generation.  Those of us in our late 40s, 50s, and 60s represent a mighty marketing demographic, and we’re just about wise enough now to appreciate true talent over superficial beauty.   Thirty years ago if a would-be celebrity couldn’t appeal to 17 year olds, they weren’t considered viable in commercial music.  Now?  Well, screw the whippersnappers.  Who needs ’em?  We might be stiff crawling out of bed in the mornings, but we can deliver up platinum album sales if we take a mind to.

The second part of my theory is a bit more esoteric.  I wonder if there might be an evolutionary step we’ve taken that has caused us to be more in tune with what is real.  I’m a creative person and value the creative process.  I’ve read “The Artist’s Way.”  But, there are some things you can’t create.  Susan Boyle’s moment in the spotlight was the artistic equivalent of lightening striking, and even the best director or producer would tell you that you just can’t create that.  Sometimes magic happens, whether on a movie set, under a Broadway proscenium arch, or on a talent show stage.  And that magic is when absolute authenticity shines from a pure place.

Susan Boyle might not look like a star, but she’s real.  And that true self she presents to the world is what we crave.  We don’t want to sing like Susan Boyle.  We want to have the courage to be as authentic.

Either that, or it all boils down to Boomers becoming as Youtube savvy as the whippersnappers.

Get Your Hands Off My Darjeeling

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Tomorrow I go to the post office to put a very large check into the mail made out to the IRS.  Meanwhile, a bunch of Republicans are staging “tea party” demonstrations across the nation for lower taxes.   (And isn’t their W-onder Boy the one who grossly increased the national debt, increased the size of government, put us into an endless war with a seemingly limitless price tag, and left us in our current economic shit-hole?)

Here are my three thoughts about this tea party:

1.  Why do you try to prove you’re more fiscally responsible by wasting a precious commodity?  The original tea party was to protest against taxes on tea by a government that offered the colonists no representation.  So, a) why don’t you bring your income or capital gains to dump tomorrow as those are the taxes you are protesting, and b) our votes are now our primary voices of protest, and more of those “voices” were (and still are) in support of the change President Obama brings.

2.  As an avid tea drinker and, dare I say, afficionado, tomorrow’s demonstration is practically akin to burning books to me.  I would almost approve your ignorance if your plan was to donate the tea brought to the demonstration to people who have lost their jobs . . . because of the economy W-onder Boy helped bring about.

3.  When I put that check in the mail tomorrow, with it will go the power of my intentions that my widow’s mite will go forth into the coffers of our government to do good work . . . help someone get a job rebuilding our roads or a child get healthcare.

And after I mail it, I think I’ll go home and have a cup of tea.

Barry and Liz Chat It Up

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CNN was abuzz last night about all the protocol the Obamas would have to follow to meet Queen Elizabeth.  Fortunately, they were not required to bow.  Apparently American citizens don’t have to bow to the Queen of England.

But there were other considerations.  They were not to speak until the Queen spoke first.  They were not to touch the Queen.  When they met the Queen, she would stick her hand out first to greet them, and then they could reach their hands out to shake hers.   They were to never have their backs to the Queen.  In their private audience, the Queen would leave the room first or walk out with them in order to avoid this horrible event that would probably cause the worlds to stop turning in at least eight different universes.

I’m a quasi- Anglophile.  I’m about as interested in all things British as any good English Literature major.   I admire the fact that the Brits have managed to keep a monarchy going for a bejillion-and-a-half years, and I can be moved by tradition, pomp, and circumstance as much as the next rebellious Yank.   But, I cannot help but hear the above ridiculous protocol for a President of the United States (for god’s sake) meeting the Queen of England without rolling my eyes and letting fly with a very American “Good grief.”  Get over yourself, Bess.

Perhaps it’s simply my baseball and apple pie showing, but it goes against every liberty-loving cell of my body to hear the news of ANYBODY bowing to ANYBODY, with the singular exception of curtain-call time on Broadway.

I see two ways the British Monarchy can continue to be relevant:

1)   Skip right past Charles and have William’s coronation.  Tomorrow.

2)  Figure out some way to convince Elizabeth to join the 20th Century (Yes, I mean 20th; even I’m not enough of an optimist to think she could make the leap all the way to the 21st).

God Save the Queen.  From her own pomposity.

Yin-Yang Economics

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For the past few years, I’ve used credit cards as an emergency fund.

Boy, when it’s in black and white, it sounds really stupid, huh?  But, I don’t have piles of cash laying around, and sometimes piles of cash are required.  As an independent contractor, I have to pay my own taxes.  Although I have tried to be good and pay them quarterly in the past, that is often a challenge as well.  So this year I didn’t.  And this year I need a pile of cash.  And this year the economy sucks and credit has been clamped down tight.

Every one of my credit cards has had the credit limit reduced to just what I owe, and several of them have threatened to raise the interest rate to an ungodly figure if I didn’t agree to make no more charges and close the account.  I would wonder what the hell happened to my pristine credit if it weren’t for the fact that this same thing has happened to almost everybody I talk to.  Likely it has happened to you as well.

A few years back, I saw the actress Sharon Stone on some television show, probably The Today Show or something like that.  She was talking about the stroke she had experienced a few years before.  She said, and I am greatly paraphrasing, but this is the gist — she didn’t start to really heal until she stopped resisting it and instead embraced her stroke as one of the best things that had ever happened to her.  She believes that everything happens to serve her, so her stroke must have happened to serve her as well.   It was a powerful interview, and I remembered it because it had such an impact on me and also because I agreed with her.

I’ve thought about that interview a lot the last few weeks.  I’ve thought about it as I hear people bitching and moaning and fretting over the financial situation.   (Before I get flooded with responses from angry people, please know that I recognize there are many people going through very challenging times and really, really hurting right now.  Please, feel free to bitch and moan if it helps you.)   But, I’ve never believed that helps.  In fact, I believe it exacerbates the situation because so much energy is focused on “how bad it is.”

I decided this week to embrace the economy and the credit clamp-down as one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  I’ve been vowing to pay off credit cards for years.  Now, thanks to the credit crunch, I have support from the universe in doing that very thing!   I’ve been swearing that I was going to stop putting ANYTHING on credit, but always found “one exception” that I could somehow justify.  Now, thanks to the credit crunch, I will work out a payment plan with the tax man that does not involve Visa or Visa’s interest rates.  Golly, you mean there were options all this time???

I have so many things to be grateful for.  My job (both of them).  My house.  My partner.  Our family of humans and animals.  Free eggs come fall when the Dragon Bliss Chicken Herd reaches maturity.

And the credit crunch.

Thanks to the powers that be for ALWAYS looking out for me.