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Jan. 30th, 2014
I’m eating fewer and fewer meals over TV, as I read or do my blogging round between bites. This started out when my afternoon reading session extended through dinnertime. I couldn’t count on having close to an hour to watch TV, and so I just took to reading over my sandwich or pot pie. Of course, I lost a lot of breakfast time to my walks a long time ago. And now today, I realized how much I kind of regret spending my post-lunch time hurrying through the Times and Sully’s Dish. Why not do it over lunch? It works very well for me. My food may get a little cold by the time I finish it, but I am willing to pay that price. Besides, I don’t often come across a movie that really grabs my attention. This feels like a much better use of my time.
One of the things that makes Nina Zero so attractive is her sad regretfulness over her family, having to live a mean little life rather than the American dream that is always touted around you.
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I drove downtown, passed a billboard advertisement for the phone company. The main character was a white girl-next-door type in shorts and college sweatshirt. A book was tucked under her arm, she held a sheet of paper had “A+” scrawled along the top. She cradled a telephone beneath her neck and shoulder. Her mouth gaped, her eyes were bright with excitement. The telephone line stretched to another telephone on the opposite side of the billboard, where Mom and Dad listened, surrounded by the latest appliances in a sparkling kitchen. Dad was home from the office, tie loosened, a swath of fatherly gray at his temples. A tennis racket was clenched in Mom’s free hand. Her tennis whites were clean and bright as her kitchen. The top of the billboard was stamped with the slogan GOOD NEWS IS AS CLOSE AS YOUR TELEPHONE.
I never saw my family depicted on billboards, in television commercials, magazine advertisements. Was it my fault? Some past-life karma thing? Why did I have a silent, absent and angry pop? And my mom, where was her chance at leisurely tennis afternoons? Why was it that our kitchen never sparkled? How come I never called home all breathless with excitement about anything? Why wasn’t my family happy? I wanted my share of those perfect billboard moments of life. I wanted to think about my family with happiness, not be troubled by sadness and doubt and resentment. I wanted to come from a family with more money than problems.
-- “Shooting Elvis” by Robert M. Eversz
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I drove downtown, passed a billboard advertisement for the phone company. The main character was a white girl-next-door type in shorts and college sweatshirt. A book was tucked under her arm, she held a sheet of paper had “A+” scrawled along the top. She cradled a telephone beneath her neck and shoulder. Her mouth gaped, her eyes were bright with excitement. The telephone line stretched to another telephone on the opposite side of the billboard, where Mom and Dad listened, surrounded by the latest appliances in a sparkling kitchen. Dad was home from the office, tie loosened, a swath of fatherly gray at his temples. A tennis racket was clenched in Mom’s free hand. Her tennis whites were clean and bright as her kitchen. The top of the billboard was stamped with the slogan GOOD NEWS IS AS CLOSE AS YOUR TELEPHONE.
I never saw my family depicted on billboards, in television commercials, magazine advertisements. Was it my fault? Some past-life karma thing? Why did I have a silent, absent and angry pop? And my mom, where was her chance at leisurely tennis afternoons? Why was it that our kitchen never sparkled? How come I never called home all breathless with excitement about anything? Why wasn’t my family happy? I wanted my share of those perfect billboard moments of life. I wanted to think about my family with happiness, not be troubled by sadness and doubt and resentment. I wanted to come from a family with more money than problems.
-- “Shooting Elvis” by Robert M. Eversz
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Pop's Cowboy Hat
Jan. 30th, 2014 05:13 pmPop is actually wearing his cowboy hat today. It took him a while to work up his nerve. It’s not as big as I thought it was going to be. I know it came in a super-huge box. It’s black.
I wonder how self-conscious he feels. Maybe I should have said something encouraging, “Looks good, Pop!” It is his last years. Why shouldn’t he enjoy them? But I cannot even refrain from smirking, though I at least keep my face averted. It probably cost at least a couple of hundred dollars.
I wonder how self-conscious he feels. Maybe I should have said something encouraging, “Looks good, Pop!” It is his last years. Why shouldn’t he enjoy them? But I cannot even refrain from smirking, though I at least keep my face averted. It probably cost at least a couple of hundred dollars.
1980 Reagan Acceptance Speech (Part 3)
Jan. 30th, 2014 10:25 pmReagan raises the issue of foreign affairs and the perception of American weakness under President Carter.
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When we move from domestic affairs and cast our eyes abroad, we see an equally sorry chapter in the record of the present Administration.
* A Soviet combat brigade trains in Cuba, just 90 miles from our shores.
* A Soviet army of invasion occupies Afghanistan, further threatening our vital interests in the Middle East.
* America’s defense strength is at its lowest ebb in a generation, while the Soviet Union is vastly outspending us in both strategic and conventional arms.
* Our European allies, looking nervously at the growing menace from the East, turn to us for leadership and fail to find it.
And incredibly more than 50 of our fellow Americans have been held captive for over eight months by a dictatorial foreign power that holds us up to ridicule before the world.
Adversaries large and small test our will and seek to confound our resolve, but the Carter Administration gives us weakness when we need strength; vacillation when the times demand firmness.
-- Ronald Reagan
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When we move from domestic affairs and cast our eyes abroad, we see an equally sorry chapter in the record of the present Administration.
* A Soviet combat brigade trains in Cuba, just 90 miles from our shores.
* A Soviet army of invasion occupies Afghanistan, further threatening our vital interests in the Middle East.
* America’s defense strength is at its lowest ebb in a generation, while the Soviet Union is vastly outspending us in both strategic and conventional arms.
* Our European allies, looking nervously at the growing menace from the East, turn to us for leadership and fail to find it.
And incredibly more than 50 of our fellow Americans have been held captive for over eight months by a dictatorial foreign power that holds us up to ridicule before the world.
Adversaries large and small test our will and seek to confound our resolve, but the Carter Administration gives us weakness when we need strength; vacillation when the times demand firmness.
-- Ronald Reagan
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