Archive for February, 2009
One way to fix the Academy Awards: eliminate the endless lists of thanked names
Just a little note as we’re relaxing with friends here at Buzzquarters watching the Academy Awards.
If you had one moment in your life to stand before an audience of millions and say something from your heart, would you give that up to whip out an index card and read the equivalent of a large chunk of the phone book off in your 30 seconds at the mic?
Say something inspiring.
Read a little poetry.
Sing!
Encourage people to believe in themselves so they can get where you are too.
Be sappy. Sappy plays incredibly well at awards shows.
There is a time and a place for a long list of people you want to thank: it would be an ad in Variety, or some other arrangement through the Academy. If you want to thank 50 people publicly, that way they get to frame it and put it on their wall too.
Every year, we start to wonder around Oscar time why we don’t especially enjoy watching this show. And then, we tune into the broadcast, and the name rattling begins, and we’re reminded of why this program drags on and on.
If you are going to thank an individual, pick one or two, and tell us WHY that person inspired you and how she or he helped you reach your dream. That could be a wonderful story to tell, one that we’d remember the next day, and maybe long after, depending on the story.
But, enough with the shopping lists of names.
If ever we had 30 seconds to speak to the world, you can guarantee we wouldn’t waste it rattling off names.
We’d thank our grandparents and moms, actually, for raising us, and for teaching us to never give up and never back down, if what we’re doing is right and we believe in ourselves. We’d thank all of our teachers for making us take pride in all our work, whatever we did, and our friends for standing by us through thick and then. And then, we’d wish everyone in the world a chance to have a moment like that — getting such applause and reward — because if they all work hard enough at whatever they love, that’s possible for anyone to have in their own small way.
What would you say if you had the chance to speak to millions at something like the Academy Awards?
30 seconds, live broadcast, with the expectation you’d say something memorable?
UPDATE: Despite some of the more ridiculous things Tom Hanks has said and done lately, THIS IS WHAT AN ACCEPTANCE SPEECH SHOULD BE.
And we liked this one too, from Morgan Freeman, that was so short and sweet, and yet worked in “Heavens to Murgatroyd” slightly under his breathe as well:
We realize the actors and actresses are performers, and the costume designers and technical people are not, but at least the writers — the WRITERS – who win awards should be able to cobble together something meaningful to say, and not a laundry list of everyone they’ve ever met, including the kid who ate all the glue in kindergarten.
Morgan Freeman’s approach was wonderful: just a big blanket statement of thanks to everyone who was ever involved in the movie, then thanks to Director Eastwood and his costar Swank, and finally a very personal and sedate thanks looking above to “You”, to be taken however you like it, but meaning something particular and personal to Freeman and Freeman alone.
Why can’t all the speeches be required to be of that caliber?
If they were, more people would surely watch this broadcast year after year.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for Armani.
HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy’s remarks at the ribbon-cutting of the new Armani store in Manhattan:
“Mr. Armani, Mayor Bloomberg, bald man to my right who is smiling, poor people out of camera range, all those who’ve come to gaze in wonder upon me, I, Her Royal Highness, Caroline I, last remaining vestige of Camelot, do hereby declare this important new store on Fifth Avenue, you know, OPEN!
Open, sez a ME!
For too long, you know, I’ve complained about having to go all the way to Bergdorf’s for my Armani, which is more than four blocks away from Saks, you know, and an intolerable burden away from Bloomingdales. At last, I shall be inconvenienced no more, with a new Armani store cutting that distance considerably, you know, and it could not have happened soon enough.
You know, I stand before you today not as the woman who continues to trade off the, you know, accomplishments of her father or the well-attended revered memory of her mother, and the last living link to, you know, the myth and wonder of American royalty long passed, but as a woman who, like, you know, believes squarely that clothes are not just for wearing or for buying, but for loving. Loving dearly as children. You know? Children made of mohair and cashmere, leather and merino wool. Children who can neither read nor write, for they lack eyes or hands, and have merely buttons for the former and zippers for the latter, you know.
Children, who like me, often disappoint their parents, even if said parents are sewing machines and looms, and not enchanting ghosts used shamelessly for self-promotion by their heirs, or those their heirs support. Hope, change, Camelot, you know.
No, I, your noble Princess, do believe the children are our future. Wear them well, and let Armani lead the way. Wear them with pride, and fill this store with golden laughter not at, but for, the huddled masses gaping through glass from the outside, who may never be able to afford any of the gloriously overpriced treasures within this sparkling new ivory box, but will sleep happily in cardboard dreaming of all of us who can indeed afford them. Like, you know, ME.
You know, Mr. Armani, I could never thank you enough for providing me with, you know, something to do for at least three hours each day, that I’ll happily require my assistant and scribe to pencil in before, you know, lunch at Pastis and rolling around on the floor of the silk department at Bergdorf’s, splashing Chanel No. 5 at, you know, passersby. Foiled in my quest to move to Washington and set up my court there, you’ve given me new reason to carry on, and be carried away, amongst all these, you know, very pretty things.
Because it is not about me, the last living emblem of an age long forgot, but it’s about the, you know, clothes. Such beautiful clothes. MY clothes. In MY new store. Mine, Mine, you know, MINE.”
- HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy, Year One, Day 32 in The Golden Age of Obama
On the Celebrated Royal Occasion of The Opening of the Armani Store, Fifth Avenue, New York (2/20/09)
"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for Armani"
Calling out the crazies wherever we see them
Here in Chicago, we’ve teamed up with many young Republican groups on various events and activities, at first to support McCain/Palin, but after the election, just to support worthwhile causes we both believe in, on both sides of the aisle, like charity clothes drives, the USO, and rallies against corrupt loons like Governor Rod Blagojevich.
We made a tough decision in June of 2008 to not fall in line with the Democratic party and support a candidate we did not believe in, who we still do not think has the abilities to properly lead us in horrific economic times. It’s the first time in our lives we did not blindly back a Democrat running for president, because no matter how much we hope and pray Obama ultimately proves us wrong, from the moment he announced his candidacy we felt he would be a Carter, Hoover, or Harding-level disaster of a president. So far, on the admittedly early 34th day of The Golden Age of Obama, that prescience still trumps any of the Hope!, Change!, lemonade or pixie dust “The One” has conjured up so far.
We would love more than anything to be wrong about Obama. We would love for him to be the greatest president in the history of not just the United States, but of the entire universe. We want him to suddenly evolve light years beyond any of his previous accomplishments or demonstrated abilities and, with a single waive of his right hand heal our financial wounds and right our ship of state, and with the other hand soothe all conflicts foreign and domestic while ushering in a new Golden Age of prosperity that reaches all the way up into the glittering stars.
But we don’t believe, and have never believed, this particular man has any of that magic in him, no matter how well he can read prepared remarks from a script or teleprompter.
Some of you don’t really understand what those of us in the moderate Democrat camp lost by never drinking the Kool-Aid, and tossing our lot in with McCain/Palin…because as vindictive and ugly as the media loves painting the far right, you’ve never seen ugly and hateful until you’ve scorned the Left. There are the little things, like no longer being invited to various events we were always first on the guest list for in the past, because we’re still being punished for working hard as Democrats for McCain, and for being highly visible in that cause all around Chicago for the last 5 months or so of the campaign, from the moment Clinton suspended her candidacy on June 7th through Election Night. Then there are the medium-grade slings and arrows, like lifelong, highly partisan friends who won’t speak to us anymore, because we believe (and will believe until proven otherwise) that Obama is a complete fraud, and the greatest con man perhaps the world has ever seen. Because we aren’t two-faced, like “The Lady in the Lavender Dress” we told you about once (an anti-Obama crusader here in Chicago with a real estate tax business who, after Obama won the election, pretended she backed him the whole time, and gushed in Chicago Crain’s all about how she bought a special African-American designed lavender gown to wear to the Inaugural balls so she could “collect her kiss from the new president”), and we don’t pretend to like someone we just don’t, we’re still treated very badly by people we used to call friends. And that, honestly, truly does hurt, on a very personal level. Then there’s the large-scale hits we’ve taken for being Democrats who supported McCain/Palin, and who still support and love Palin, especially, going forward — and for obvious reasons, these have hurt the most. Some of us here very conveniently lost our jobs at very liberal companies after the election, with bosses insisting this was no way related to politics, but that we just didn’t “mesh well” with “the direction of the team” anymore in the reevaluation of revised budgets. Others of us that are freelancers lost clients who spotted us on various news reports, organizing phone banks or canvassing trips to help the candidates we supported win the White House, because they were the people we thought (and still think) were best able to lead us in these difficult times. We believed (and still believe) in experience and conviction over empty platitudes and, yes, “just words”. And we continue to be punished for that.
On a daily basis.
Which has the opposite effect on us than what’s actually intended, because instead of forcing any sort of mea culpa or capitulation on our part, or any sort of re-baptism in the Purple Kool-Aid of Lethe, we still refuse to accept the new Messiah of the Left and are happy with our fate outside party lines on whatever separate rock we now occupy as bipartisan moderates in the churning eternal sea of politics. Often, it feels like something out of Antoine Saint Exubery’s little world, catching shooting stars with a net, bopping around here and there on unexpected new adventures, based from a little rock all our own off to the side of things, no longer really belonging to anything.
Because the Democratic party as it exists now does not accept us, because we don’t drink the Kool-Aid and aren’t leftist liberals.
And Republicans certainly don’t accept us, because we’re Democrats, for one, but also because we’re gay, and that’s a line in the sand for too many of them, sadly (just as, to be fair, being pro-Life is a line in the sand for many Democrats).
But, honestly, we can accept all of that, because it’s the same partisan nonsense we’ve grown up with the last 30 years, ironically evidenced like never before under Obama, who promised a new kind of politics, hope and change in Washington, and an end to partisan divisions (golly, that Jon Favreau sure is clever when writing all of that wonderful sounding rhetoric absolutely no one on either side of the aisle actually believes in).
What actually stings the most, though, in a moment of rare personal candor from us to you, is when fellow Sarah Palin supporters attack and belittle us, on sites that support Sarah Palin the way we do (and take great daily grief for doing it, too, we might add).
Here’s a snippet of nastiness directed at us on a Sarah Palin site that just boggles our imagination:
We don’t know who Isaiah is, but he’s a complete and utter jackass. And a transparent one.
Buddy, speaking directly to you now, we worked 24/7 for McCain/Palin and sunk every red cent into their election. We actually sold things on Amazon and eBay to pay for road trips to canvass for them and alienated most people we know raising a small army of Democrats for McCain to help the ticket we believed in. One of us here ended up in the hospital with food poisoning Halloween night because he was running on 3 hours of sleep a night, and his body just gave out on him, working so hard for McCain/Palin. We were ALL IN for this election, in ways you, Isaiah, most surely were not. Because no matter what you did, Isaiah, you didn’t have to contend with rocks thrown through your windows, harrassing phone calls every night, punches thrown at you on the street, and the rest of the prolonged and sustained nastiness we received, on a daily basis, as Democrats backing the best candidates left in the race, John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Isaiah, you ignorant jackass, you want to know how much we support Sarah Palin and how much we believe in her? Yes, indeed, one of us here took a punch for her the Saturday before the election, when a bunch of Obama zombies walking down the street just ahead of him here in Boystown badmouthed Sarah, called her a b****, c***, and w****, and said vulgar, nasty things about little Trig that are too awful here to print. These twenty-something, gay clowns, with their requisite Obama stickers and shirts proudly on display, thought that because we were gay too we must obviously hate Sarah, and must also obviously think it’s hilariously funny to make fun of a little baby with Down’s.
We could have taken the chicken’s route, Isaiah, and kept our mouths shut. Whenever the gay community attacks Sarah here in Chicago, we could keep our mouths shut, and that would keep the peace in our little circles here, and maybe stop costing us jobs and clients. But, we REFUSE TO STAY QUIET when Sarah’s being attacked, or little Trig or Bristol are being attacked, or when these sick and disgusting liberal f***s say vile, pedophilic things about Piper as well.
And you have no idea the level of deranged filth we hear on a regular basis about Sarah Palin, her daughters, and little Trig every day here in Boystown, encouraged, shockingly, by leaders of the gay community here, and bars like Sidetrack on Halsted, that continue to show nasty video clips degrading Palin from the campaign.
But, when Sidetrack shows those clips, we march right up to the video booth and complain about them. When we overhear anyone, and we mean ANYONE, hurling misogyny and vulgarity at the Palins, or making fun of Trig, we march right up to them and call them out, to their face, and make them as uncomfortable and embarrassed as possible, for talking about women and children in that way.
Isaiah, do you know what guys in our neighborhood call someone who spills a drink, gets something wrong, or makes any kind of mistake? Do you know what they say to someone who drops a plate, trips on the stairs, or bumps into someone else. “Hey, what are you, Sarah Palin’s baby?”. And all the gay guys in Boystown throw their heads back and laugh…and it’s all hilariously funny…until the lot of us come over, stand up to them, and IN AS LOUD A VOICE AS POSSIBLE make all of them understand that making fun of anyone with Down Syndrome will never be tolerated. Not on our watch. Degrading ANY WOMAN in misogynistic terms like b****, c***, and w**** will never pass without challenge from us (even if you are someone attacking Michelle Obama, we will call you out on that, because we might not like Michelle, her attitude, or God help us, her hideous clothes, but we will stand up for her, too, whenever and wherever misogyny’s used against her).
We’ve had guys throw punches at us on several occasions for this, and could very well get knocked out cold or beaten to a pulp over it, probably. But, we’d defend the honor of Hillary Clinton that way. We’d defend the honor of our mothers, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, and friends that way. We’ll always defend the honor of the Palin women, and would go to absolute Hell and back for little Trig.
So, Isaiah, and all Isaiahs out there, you are a complete and utter jackass.
For one, you live in a world of ignorance where you believe (1) women and (2) Democrats are so stupid and can’t think for themselves as to be one-issue voters, with that issue being abortion. On your home planet, in whatever remote galaxy that is, maybe you didn’t get the memo that abortion was decided over 35 years ago. Moderates, like us, believe, and conservatives like Roberts and Alito on the Supreme Court agree, that Roe is law of the land, on sound constitutional ground, and that no case has arisen in a generation that’s going to change that. The reality is that there are too many gravely important issues demanding bipartisan support and action in this country — as evidenced by the Trillion Dollars in Wasteful Spending just rammed through Congress — to be constantly sidelined by people like you, Isaiah, who would keep Americans divided down artificial lines, along the same tired battlelines of the last 30 years, instead of standing up, risking a punch or two to the face like we do, and supporting good public servants without abortion, gay marriage, or other divisive social issues as litmus tests.
Sarah Palin is a hero, not a villain to us. We. Love. Sarah. Palin.
For her courage and her convictions. For her momma grizzly love of family and the outdoors. For her tenacity and willingness to stand up and take punches for what she believes in. For her ability to call out corruption in all its wicked forms, and to wrestle her own party to the ground when it’s wrong and wasteful and enamored with boondoggles. For her pioneer spirit and her servant’s heart.
If we were straight, we’d marry a girl just like her. As guys, we’re men who want to be more like her.
We’re inspired by her, from all the way on our little rock here in the uncharted territory of the moderate middle. Where we have done more for Sarah Palin than some Republicans. Just as we’re All-In for Hillary Clinton on a daily basis, and will gladly and willingly sacrifice and surrender everything each time in the future someone we believe in stands up, risks everything herself, and defies the odds and the national media to crusade for what she believes in.
So grow up and get used to us, Isaiah, you pompous, ignorant jackass. We’re a bunch of gay Hillary Democrats here in Chicago who love Sarah Palin, and will work for her should she ever run for national office again. We hope that makes you dribble pudding all over your face in the morning, as you sit in your playpen dreaming up your conspiracy theories in your underpants, before your mother comes down into the basement to change you, because we’re here, we’re queer, and we love Sarah Palin.
Go ahead and feel free to be all moonbat crazy in comments over this rant.
Tell us how much you all hate us, either because we’re Hillary guys who love Sarah, or we’re for Sarah but are Hillary guys, or like Isaiah, from the planet Bizzaro, who believes we’re part of some conspiracy that has more time and energy invested in it on a grassroots level than anything humanly possible.
It’s a real, damn shame that people in the Sarah Palin camp don’t follow Palin’s own example — Palin is welcoming, hardworking, and nonjudgmental. She has never once in her career allowed any personal feelings or averice to get in the way of a job at hand. Palin might not be thrilled that a bunch of gay Hillary guys in Chicago love and support her. To be honest, we’re not sure how thrilled Hillary herself ever is with us. We honestly don’t care, because we’re thrilled with the two of them and that’s all that matters to us.
Sure, it would be nice to treated well, respected, and appreciated by other Sarah Palin supporters. Just as it would have been nice to be treated wel, respected, and appreciated by fellow Democrats the last two years. A whole lot of things in this world would be nice, but if Election 2008 taught us anything, it’s that we rarely get what we want.
That doesn’t mean we should ever stop fighting for the causes we believe in, no matter how many Isaiahs there are out there, or how few people tell them to shut the f*** up.
Today in History: February 22nd (Year One, Day 34 in The Golden Age of Obama)
1495 – King Charles VIII of France claims throne of Naples
1632 – Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two World Systems is published
1744 – Battle of Toulon
1797 – Last invasion of Britain by France begins near Wales
1819 – Adams-Onis Treaty: Spain sells Florida to US for $5 million ($67 million in today’s dollars)
1847 – Battle of Buena Vista
1856 – Republican Party holds first national meeting in Pittsburgh, PA
1862 – Jefferson Davis inaugurated for official 6-year-term as President of the Confederate States of America
1879 – In Utica, New York, first Woolworth’s 5-and-10-cent store opens
1882 – Serbian Kingdom refounded
1889 – President Cleveland signs bill admitting North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington as US states
1915 – Germany institutes unrestricted submarine warfare
1924 – President Coolidge is first US president to deliver radio address from White House
1942 – President Roosevelt orders General MacArthur out of the Philippines as US defenses collapse
1948 – Communist coup in Czechoslovakia
1958 – Egypt and Syria join to form the United Arab Republics (Constructicons merge to form DEVASTATOR!)
1959 – First Daytona 500
1973 – US and China agree to establish liaison offices
1974 – Assassination attempt on Richard Nixon
1979 – St. Lucia independent of Great Britain
1980 – MIRACLE ON ICE: US defeats Soviets at Lake Placid, 4-3
1983 – Notorious Broadway flop Moose Murders opens and closes on same night at Eugene O’Neil Theater
1986 – People power revolution in Philippines
1994 – Aldrich Ames and wife are charged with spying for the Soviet Union
1997 – Cloning of Dolly the sheep announced
2006 – Britain’s largest robbery: $92.5 million stolen from Securitas depot in Kent
Who would run the best day care center?
Head over to this site, and then look to the right.
Just look who’s in the lead.
It’s not our champ, even though we’d have kids JUST to send them to Hillary Clinton’s day care center.
Nope, the leader’s another woman we love in this world.
You betcha.
Sometimes the Universe Brings You the Wrong French Toast
Dear HillBuzz,
When I first moved to Chicago, I dated a guy named Jason who inspired the term “Eeyore” that I now consistently apply to people who not only see metaphoric glasses half-full, cry over spilled milk, live in a woeful past, and dwell on everything negative, but are determined to bring down the rest of us with them.
It’s like a goal they have, to make those unlucky enough to be around them as miserable and rain-cloud besotted as they are.
Jason the Eeyore and I lasted about a month together, finally breaking up after a trip to the local Jewel to get, of all things, trays of crudite and various salsas for an Amazing Race viewing party, where Jason was upset I talked to not only the elderly woman in front of us in checkout line, but her little grandbaby riding happily in the shopping cart’s fold-down rumble seat too.
“Stop talking to babies and old people! I hate it when you do that!”, Jason bellowed, in clear earshot of a woman who not only radiated sweetness and light, but was in many ways a dead-ringer for Golden Girl Betty White.
Jason totally dissed Rose Nylon.
And I knew, before the carrots, tomatoes, and tiny baby snow peas were rung up, that Jason and I were through, and that no matter who won the Amazing Race that night, he and I would never be crossing any finish lines of our own together.
But, on the way back to his place with the groceries, knowing full well I’d start a new chapter in my life single the next day (and free to talk to as many babies or surviving members of America’s funniest sitcom of all time as I wanted, without scolding), I realized Jason would always be someone I was thankful for knowing, because he not only clued me in on the Eeyores of the world, but he also introduced me to Orange, one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago, and gave me a life lesson there I’d never forget.
Orange serves only breakfast or brunch, and is painted in shades of bright, sunshine-happy, delicious Florida sparkling, well, orange. When you walk into the place, you smell citrus wafting in the air, Fruity Pebbles pancakes cooking and bacon sizzling merrily somewhere, and you’re transported instantly to this safe and snuggly place that’s not Belmont and Broadway, Chicago, USA anymore, but somewhere in your heart where nothing bad can or should happen. Someplace safe and sweet. Someplace all about breakfast and smiles and love and good company.
Unless you’re Jason the Eeyore, in which case you see Orange as just another place to rain down on, and you look for ways to ruin everyone’s day and squeeze the last remaining joy out of their lives.
Breakfast started well enough, though, with fresh fruit sushi Orange calls “frushi” ( sweet coconut rice and various fruits with little cranberry, strawberry, and apricot dipping sauces), served alongside piping hot orange-infused coffee that honestly made every cell in my body feel so relaxed, happy, and alive.
Jason thought the coffee was bitter, and of course the frushi was good, but not as good as it was the last time he was there. Jason hates cranberries, and got a tiny splinter from the chopsticks that, after three tries, with Jason practically jamming his finger into my face, I still couldn’t see. He seemed almost disappointed there wasn’t anything bad to say about the frushi, the kind of person who just keeps looking for something to pick at.
Which, of course, he found when our main orders arrived.
I had the pancake flight, a foursome of tiny babycakes Orange does as a special every day, centered around a different theme each day (and on that visit, it was “The Beatles”, with a Ringo of honey oats and granola, a Strawberry Fields with cream and berries, two more connected to Harrison and McCartney that were so delicious they were wolfed down before my brain could even properly file them away for this essay I never expected to write). Jason ordered chai stuffed french toast, filled with cream cheese and something else, which sounded delicious, like everything else at Orange.
Not being a fan of seafood, Orange is one of the few places in the world where I could eat absolutely everything that comes out of the kitchen, no matter what it was. As long as it looks and smells delicious, I honestly wouldn’t care if it wasn’t what I ordered, as long as it was something I could eat. To me, life’s too short to send things back. Sometimes the universe surprises you with something it wanted you to have instead.
Which is not how Jason the Eeyore sees things.
Instead of the chai stuffed french toast, Jason’s eyes drooped when he saw the chai french toast kebobs put in front of him (which were almost, but not quite, the same thing as what he ordered).
So, Jason, aghast, sent them back. And I had the pleasure of listening to Jason’s take on this particular travesty of culinary justice as the waitress flew back to the kitchen to grab the correct order.
She literally was gone, at most, a minute. It seemed much longer than that because of the black hole of despair and indignation Jason had become, but the waitress literally left our table with the kebobs (which looked DELICIOUS), went to the kitchen, the door closed behind her, and she reappeared with the chai stuffed french toast for Jason.
She apologized profusely, but Jason just grumbled something and looked down at his plate, unhappy. But, beneathe a skowl that would make Michelle Obama proud of Jason for the first time in her adult life, I detected the sadistic glint of a smirk, because Jason thought he found something wrong with this order, too.
“It’s ice cold. I can’t eat this. It’s FREEZING. Here, try it,” he said, pushing a forkful over to me, in the odd way people do when they think something tastes bad or smells funny (so, obviously, they want you to smell and taste it too, because it’s so bad).
Curious, I ate the chai stuffed french toast and my taste buds rejoiced. I can’t remember the last time I had anything that good in my mouth (no entendres of any kind intended). The flavor combinations were impressive, with layers of savory and sweet, and a little hint of unexpected basil in the cream cheese filling. I absolutely loved his breakfast, even more than my Beatles pancake flight (which was damn good in its own right). Which, incidentally, was perfectly cooked and HOT. It wasn’t cold at all.
“Do you want me to tell you what I think, or do you want me just to say it’s cold?”, asked him, knowing no matter what I said, Jason was dead-set on sending the plate back and making a scene.
The waitress was a real trooper, so much so that I decided at that moment whatever my half of the check came to, she was getting a 50% tip for putting up with Jason, who made the very scene I expected from him, complete with a lecture about how hot things should be when served (since Jason was a waiter himself…at a Bennigan’s out by the airport). And the waitress didn’t even roll her eyes or condescend back at him. Make that a 100% tip.
Jason sent another version of that chai stuffed toast back another two times before he was finally satisfied. I long ago finished by pancake flight, and actually ordered more frushi as I sat there for what became a three hour breakfast at Orange. People came and went, sitting down for breakfast, then heading back to their lives, as Jason and I occupied that table, with chai stuffed french toast appearing from the kitchen to visit Jason briefly, before disappearing back into what I imagine to be an increasingly more angry kitchen.
Orange comped our check, but I gave the waitress $50 anyway, so embarrassed by what Jason had done. And I truly believe he set out looking for flaws, trolling for something to complain about, because over the course of dating him, he only ever seemed happy when he was making other people miserable.
After we broke up, that chai french toast really defined not only our relationship to me, but taught me a lot about myself, too. I would have eaten the kebobs and enjoyed them as a surprise from the universe. To me, they were an unexpected adventure, like driving to what you thought was a funeral home and finding an amusement park instead. Jason would mope around complaining he didn’t get to go to a funeral, while I laughed my head off on the roller coaster of life.
And so, “sometimes the universe brings you the wrong french toast” became one of the idioms I use frequently now, and I’ve infected all my friends’ conversations with it as well. It’s shorthand for “sometimes things don’t work out the way you thought, but deal with it”.
More often than not, life brings you delicious surprises, like the french toast kebobs I would have never in a million years ordered, but would have relished when put in front of me. Surprise! And, maybe, the kebobs where what I really needed, nutrionally, anyway. Instead of all those strawberries and cream. Maybe the universe knew better. Maybe it was trying to tell Jason something.
You can’t read too much into breakfast without proving how crazy you are (especially when the Alphabits starts telling you to do things), but sometimes the universe really does send you the wrong french toast for a reason.
When I look at Hillary Rodham Clinton excelling as Secretary of State, looking so happy and confident in her role abroad, I still wish she was our President but am delighted she is in no way connected to the boondoggle that is the Trillion Dollars in spending the Demcorats just forced through Congress. Hillary Clinton will not be saddled with this economic mess. She will not be responsible for anything domestic, as this nation suffers through what’s likely to be a brutal three or four years. Hillary Clinton may not be President today — but that means she’s not in danger of becoming a Carter-esque one-term-disaster-of-a-President.
Sometimes, the universe brings you the wrong french toast.
I never thought Clinton would end up at the State Department, and honestly never gave the State Department much thought in the course of my day. And now, I am riveted by everything she’s doing at Foggy Bottom and follow the State Department’s website regularly. And it’s really been a blessing, in a way. With everything so bad at home, and so many new Eeyores breeding every day in this economy, it’s refreshing to see Clinton in China and read about Sino-American trade relations, instead of following which banks are insolvent and in danger of being nationalized today.
So, Hillary Clinton certainly ordered the chai stuffed french toast for herself, but the universe brought her the french toast kebobs instead. She could have sent them back, and moped around like Jason, but she chose to relish what was put in front of her, and excel on a path she never saw for herself before.
That really inspires me.
And it doesn’t preclude her from ordering the chai stuffed french toast again at some point in the future, like seven years from now.
Just like none of my personal setbacks ever prevent me from trying again, too. Or prevent you from doing whatever you want to do, either.
Life’s just too short to mope and Eeyore about things.
Eat the kebobs if you get them, and realize there are unlimited surprises all around us. Some people roll with the punches, get over personal disappointment, and make the best of all opportunities presented to them.
You can either be Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States.
Or, you can be Jason, the Eeyore.
Because sometimes the universe brings you the wrong french toast, and it’s always up to you to decide how you’re going to react.
Sebastian Gray,
Chicago, IL
Hillary Clinton in Beijing: Now, and Then
And here’s Clinton in Beijing, back in 1995, asserting human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.
Sometimes we think people lose sight of how truly extraordinary it is that the woman who came to Beijing in 1995 as First Lady went on to become a United States Senator, presidential candidate, and, now, United States Secretary of State. Who knows where she’ll go in the future, but we hope she continues to be a force on the world stage for decades to come, just as she’s been for 17 years now.
Would you voluntarily leave your dream job, that no one on Earth can legally fire you from?
What if you lucked into your dream job, a job you tried to apply for in the past but were rejected for, and you found yourself, not long before your retirement, at the very end of your career, in the position you always wanted?
No one one Earth can fire you.
You’re guaranteed a gorgeous office in a historic building, complete with staff, luxurious travel arrangements, the world’s best healthcare, legal authority to use your own signature as valid US postage, the ability to buddy up with a colleague or two and go anywhere on the planet you want and do anything you’ve dreamed of and call it “a fact-finding mission”.
People have to call you SENATOR.
Would you voluntarily give that up? No matter how many people stood outside your window and clamoured for you to quit and go home?
Honestly and truly, if any one of us here became a United States Senator (D-HillBuzz), mobs with torches and pitch forks couldn’t convince us to step down.
We wouldn’t give a flying fig if a state governor or the White House told us to resign, or if nobody in the Senate cafeteria wanted to sit at the lunch table with us. That’s what takeout and a conference table in our plush Senate office is for. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn doesn’t like it? Tough turkeys.
The Illinois state senate should have thought of that back in December, when former Governor Blagojevich told the legislature he would sign a bill authorizing a special election to fill Obama’s Senate seat. But, Democrats in Illinois realized Republican Mark Kirk would win that seat, so they never passed the special election legislation, and Blagojevich appointed Burris to the Senate vacancy so the people of Illinois would have two Senators representing them in Washington (well, one Senator, and then Dick Durbin, who’s more a waste of space than anything else).
Now that he’s Governor, Pat Quinn’s calling for Burris to resign, so he can appoint a “temporary replacement” for him, and then hold a special election for the Senate seat (in which, we still insist, Mark Kirk would win). Something tells us Quinn won’t really go ahead with the special election part of his dream scheme: instead, he would appoint another black Senator to replace Burris, and then leave it at that until 2010. Either Danny Davis or Jesse White seem to be the two top candidates Quinn has in mind so far.
But, why on Earth would Burris quit a job no one can fire him from?
When people are demanding you give up and quit something, it’s because they can’t get rid of you on their own — or they would.
So, why give them the satisfaction of quitting?
Why give up the office you’ve always wanted, especially when you know you’re not going to run for re-election in 2010?
Why not just enjoy all the perks, have a grand time, gain enough notoriety to write your memoirs and have them actually published, and give a giant, Illinois-style, F-U to all detractors far and wide?
That’s certainly what we’d do.
How about you?
UPDATE: As long as we are talking about asking people to resign. Here’s 10 people we’d love to see resign from the Senate:
(1) Claire McCaskill – whose children “bug her to do things”
(2) Bob Casey – whose children “bug him to do things”
(3) Ted Kennedy – who let Mary Jo Kopechne drown, and who now is incapacitated with illness
(4) Arlen Specter – who spent ONE TRILLION DOLLARS without reading the bill
(5) Olympia Snow – who spent ONE TRILLION DOLLARS without reading the bill
(6) Susan Collins – who spent ONE TRILLION DOLLARS without reading the bill
(7) Max Baucus – who is ineptitude and incompetence personified
(8) Dick Durbin – who is a waste of space
(9) Harry Reid – who says tourists smell, and jammed $8 billion for his own train set into the Spending Wish List
(10) David Vitter – who is possibly the most revolting man we’ve ever met
And that’s, literally, just off the top of our heads, of people who truly do deserve to resign, for gross incompetence and the inability to either think for themselves, read properly, or make decent decisions.
What's the name of Hillary Clinton's plane?
To our knowledge, the Boeing 757 reserved for the Secretary of State does not have a name, or special call designation other than “Special Air Mission”. Flights carrying the President operated by the Air Force are, of course Air Force One (Marine One for the helicopters, or Army One, Navy One, or Coast Guard One if the President’s aboard an aircraft operated by those branches). Flights carrying the Vice President carry the ‘Two” designation, as in “Air Force Two” or “Marine Two”. President George W. Bush flew aboard a Navy fight jet once, creating the first Navy One flight in history. President Richard M. Nixon flew on a United Airlines flight once, creating an Executive One flight (the designation when a President flies aboard a non-government plane).
But, the Secretary of State does not carry a special designation like “One” or “Two” with her flights.
Though, any plane carrying Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton will always be “Hill Force One” to us (the name of her campaign jet in 2008, as dubbed by the press, with her campaign helicopter in Iowa called the “Hill-o-copter”).
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's Special Air Mission 757
What's Hillary Clinton Doing Today?
Hillary Clinton’s in Beijing on the final leg of her tour of Asia. Here are some photos of her visit to the Chinese capital:
Folk artist Peng Xiaoping shows a newly made dough figurine of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to photographers in Beijing February 21, 2009.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, listens to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao during their meeting in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009. Clinton and Chinese officials on Saturday agreed to focus their governments' efforts on stabilizing the battered global economy and combating climate change, putting aside long-standing concerns about human rights.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, talks to Chinese President Hu Jintao during their meeting in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, speaks to students, left, who had asked her to sign a copy of the Chinese edition of her book, during a visit to the Taiyanggong Geothermal Power Plant in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks during a visit to the Taiyanggong Geothermal Power Plant in Beijing Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (left) is greeted by Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing, on February 21
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (L) meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Great Hall of People in Beijing.
