Writer & Columnist • Santa Barbara, CA
You know that moment when you’re heading out your front door for a big trip and you keep going over that mental list to make sure you’ve taken care of everything?
Dog sitter, mail hold, toothbrush, tickets, directions, deadbolt …
That’s where I am right now as a parent. My oldest is driving, earning paychecks from two jobs, and getting ready to apply to colleges. As he heads toward the front door for the trip of his life, that list keeps ticking through my head. Have I taught him everything he needs to know?
For me, the issue first came to light while I was staring up the skirt of a drag queen.
Stage-side at a Pride festival with my family one summer, I pointed out a dazzling diva, gasped, and said, “Ooh! Look at her spectacular shoes!” Sheepishly, my son asked me why I referred to her as “her” when her biceps, Adam’s apple, and baritone growl indicated that she was a he. It was a fair question, but before I could craft a careful response, this tumbled out of my mouth:
“Well … I guess because she’s gone to a whole lot of trouble to be perceived as a she … and frankly, what do I care?”
Thus was my position on LGBT pronoun-ing established. Because I truly didn’t care. Why on earth shouldn’t people be called what they want to be called? I’m no us-versus-them gal. I’m a fiendishly tolerant liberal; I don’t give a flying flush who’s allowed into the ladies’ room — and you can’t make me squirm.
… Except that I’ve recently changed my mind. And I’m squirming.
Living in paradise, one can get awfully smug. My friends and I have a ritual of meeting at sunset on the beach about once a month. Plopped in beach chairs, toes in the sand, eyes on the horizon, and a syrah on our lips, we toast to our extraordinary good fortune. “Aren’t we lucky?” we gasp as dolphins and even whales dance past in the surf.
From our unspoiled, cliff-edged beaches, it’s easy to see why Oprah lives here: Where else would she live?! It’s easy to understand how we earned our highbrow nicknames: The American Riviera and the Galapagos of the North. And it’s usually quite easy to forget that at any given moment, countless gallons of toxic, black sludge are whooshing silently through pipelines beneath our shores.
I have bad news for CrossFit fellas, mud runners, and other muscle men: The hottest look on the beach this summer is not the sculpted torso and chiseled thighs of the gym rat.
It’s the Dad Bod.
You heard me. What’s got girls giddy is the plain, pasty, paunchy physique of a man who’s more likely to be dining on leftover chicken fingers and mac ‘n’ cheese than he is to be hoisting kettle bells. (Is that what one does with kettle bells? Does one hoist? Endowed with a Mom Bod, I wouldn’t know.)
It’s good to be the king. Even at 88.
Mel Brooks, the king of farce, treated UCSB Arts & Lectures’ big donors to an evening of funny stories Tuesday night at the Montecito Country Club during a fundraiser for the organization’s Arts Education program.
A longtime lampooner of sacred cows from Jesus and the Nazis to Robin Hood and the Old West, Brooks is best known for writing and directing Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, and The Producers (both the 1968 movie and the recent Broadway version). He’s one of 12 people in the universe to have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards.
All manic timing, sparkling eyes and understated delivery, Brooks chuckled at his own bits, spit water as a gag, and cracked wise on everything from the mahi mahi on the menu to his cab-driving Uncle Joe.
Here were the top 10 things we learned:
It’s becoming quite clear to me, as these things do.
You told me it would — that one day I’d understand why you did the things you did when I was a kid.
Remember our clashes over curfews, battles about boyfriends, and disputes over driving? Back then your motivation was opaque to me — not mysterious, just whack. We seemed so wildly different: Me a gangly, new-wave, camo-clad poet. You a petite ex-hippie breadwinner with a Motown jones.
We wanted such different things. For example, I wanted to be with my boyfriend at every moment, and you wanted me to occasionally eat, bathe, sleep …
But the enlightenment you predicted has finally arrived. Having kids now myself, I often find myself walking a mile in your strappy stilettos. And I’ll be honest: My feet hurt.
Let me stop you right now. Before you ask. Before you even launch into your pitch. Because the answer is no.
No, I don’t want to pay your beauty pageant fees. No, I’m not interested in funding your dream of opening a bakery. No, I promise that I cannot be convinced to contribute to your trans surgery.
It feels like every time I log onto social media, I’m being hit up by another grassroots fundraising campaign. But it’s not for the stuff we used to hear about — the stuff I’d happily write a check for. It’s not a family I know facing astronomical medical bills or an earthquake across the globe that left thousands homeless.
It’s been exactly two years since Sheryl Sandberg published Lean In, her snappily titled womanifesto aimed at leveling the corporate playing field.
Now it’s my turn.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you two other snappy words guaranteed to change the business world for the better:
Shut up.
No, really.
Please. Shut it.
Zip those runaway gabtraps, you prattling project technicians, twaddling strategery administrators, and Chief Blarney Officers.
One of my Top Ten Rules for Remaining Alive is to never interrupt an ex-con mid-sentence. But damn it, I couldn’t help it. You see, after spending 13 months in federal prison for drug trafficking, Piper Kerman wrote her memoir Orange Is the New Black to expose the nation’s overcrowded and under-effective correctional system as the hot cinder-block mess that it is. And since her 2005 release, she’s been an outspoken advocate for prison reform. Frankly, who could blame her?
