Thursday 2 December 2010

ALLEZ A DISNEYLAND!

I always find it funny when people - and let's be specific here, adults - go to Disneyland to celebrate a victory…or I suppose in some cases, a recovery. Let’s just say it has become a bit of a spoof of itself when it comes to being the celebration destination. Cut to some linebacker when he’s just won the Superbowl and John Madden (for you English, think Gary Lineker but older and fatter) asks him, ‘so now what are you going to do?’ ‘Well John, “I’m going to Disneyland!’ My first thought always is, haven’t any of these people heard of Paris? Not to be a snob or anything, but when I want to celebrate in grand fashion, I don’t think about going to a crowded theme park where I’m forced to wait in hour long lines, eat bad food for ten times the price, and spin around in a tea cup until I puke.

That said, I suppose a trip on Space Mountain followed by a churro isn’t the worst way to spend an afternoon. And have you seen the lines around the Eiffel Tower these days? Not to mention the eight dollar cappuccino and cheesy tower replicas they try to sell you as you're waiting. Oh mon dieu, Paris...Disneyland...it's almost one in the same.

My sister and I used to love Pirates of the Caribbean. Hands down, the best ride in any amusement park out there. I’m not sure if it is the mood set by the dark dank tunnels with those little chirping fireflies, or the drunk pirate puppets laughing in your face as you float by, but even to do this day when I’m on that ride I get giddy. I suppose what Disneyland has that Paris doesn’t – aside from incredibly large people wearing T-shirts that usually say witty things like, 'burp if you love Jesus;' sorry but it’s true, the French are just annoyingly thin and stylish – is the nostalgia factor. One just can’t help but revert back to their childhood when you’re skipping down main street. You step thru those gates, eye Donald Duck waddling around with Goofy (Goofy always struck me as the one who got the joke), see those balloons in the shape of Mickey Mouse’s head and suddenly you find yourself in the gift shop buying up half the stuffed animal section. I suppose it is the one place where Peter Pan complexes are not only allowed, but they are encouraged. Maybe their motto should be, ‘come, get hopped up on sugar and act like a six year old. It’s okay.’

In fact, in a few more weeks I think the King will be big enough (at least in size) to go on most of the rides at Disneyland. However, if he’s anything like his mother, he’s not going to want to get stuck in the kiddie section going in circles on some flying elephant when there is the Matterhorn to consider. So what if he can’t sit up yet, that’s what seatbelts are for. I’m thinking a tub of popcorn and a mach four whirl around a rollercoaster will definitely fix his sleeping issues. Get ready sweetheart, we’re going to Disneyland!

Wednesday 1 December 2010

DIGITAL DEATH

A few renowned musicians have decided that in honor of World Aids Day (which is today), they are planning their digital deaths in order to raise money for several children's charities associated with the cause. In short, until their followers donate one million dollars, artists such as Alicia Keys, Justin Timberlake, and Lady Gaga will fail to update their Facebook and Twitter accounts. Dear god no!! Not that, anything but that! How can we live without their daily updates telling us how their morning coffee tasted?...Apparently some out there cannot and hopefully will put their money where their digital mouth is. Just to hammer the point home, these artists will be photographed in coffins (above) to symbolize their death from the digital world. Got to love the drama. At least it’s for a good cause, which is the point of all the theatrics I suppose.

This of course got me thinking about our profound addictions to the digital world. These days the notion of going cold turkey for even an hour seems downright impossible. For those of you luddites out there that don’t even own a computer, I have to hand it to you, I’m heavily impressed, if not slightly puzzled? How do you find a phone number? Is there still a phone book in existence out there?? As for the rest of us with severe dependencies on all things electronic, living without our handhelds, laptops, ipads etc…well I don’t know about you, but I wonder what the heck we did with all our time before all these intrusive gadgets came into being. Even as I sit here and type on my trusty laptop, a thing I touch almost as much as my son – sad but very true – I think what would a week be without all this electronic clutter in our lives. Sublime no doubt.

Last September my partner and I went to Greece and did just that, or attempted it anyway. Well, unbeknownst to him, I decided to put a moratorium on electronics and stated that for one week we would not check the internet or look at our phones. My partner may have thrown up at this point, I can’t remember. I then declared we would submerse ourselves in books, Greek salad, and holiday living. Don’t get me wrong, my partner was very excited to go on holiday and loves all that it entails, but the notion of life without his blackberry made him seriously break out in a nervous sweat. He also wouldn't know a book if it bit him in the ass. If it's not on screen he actually has trouble reading the print.

The first few days went all right. You could tell it was a lot to get used to, as every few seconds he would hold up his hand in the air looking for something that was usually attached to it. He then compensated by going to the Greek bakery several times a day near our hotel and cleaned it out of every cookie in sight - one addiction for another I suppose. Little did I know there was also an internet café tucked away between the tourist shops where he would sneak off and get his fix. Not one to surrender without a fight, I rented us some four wheeler motorbike contraption, and made us risk our lives on the treacherous roads of Ios – the people drive like they’re out to kill you - to find some deserted beaches, just to get him away from all the temptation. I will say to his credit, he did finish two books, something I have never seen him do in the four and a half years I have been with him.

For me, the week was utterly peaceful. I didn’t care who was emailing me, what news story I was missing, who friended me, or how my laptop was dealing without me (it missed me, it confessed this later). But of course, the week was only a week and now we’re both back to texting, emailing, twittering (him not me) and internet surfing like the junkies that we are. The poor King doesn’t stand a chance…in fact, I think he just SMS-ed me to tell me it’s time for his bottle.

Tuesday 30 November 2010

GOD AND THE PIGSKIN

An NFL player blamed God over the weekend when he dropped a would be game winning touchdown pass. He of course took to his twitter to sound off – oh twitter where would we be without your ability to air our astounding narcissism – that after all the praying he’s done over his life, how could God let this happen. He goes further to exclaim that if the Big Man expects him to learn from this he can forget it essentially, and he’ll never forget this! “Ever.” In case God wasn’t listening to his first threat, he threw in the ‘EVER’ in true juvenile fashion followed by several exclamation points. You hear that God, one of your flock is royally pissed over a pigskin!

I shall put my feelings about religion as a whole to the side and say that perhaps Mr. Football’s lesson is that blaming God for dropping a ball is going to get him utterly nowhere. In fact, I’m sure his god is up there thinking, “Well Stevie (Johnson), I gave you free will, ample skills, and a fun job that pays you more than most make in a lifetime; if you can’t manage to catch a perfectly thrown pass, then even I can’t help you. And stop complaining, I lost money on that game!”

This is what I always find amusing – and slightly confusing - about prayer. When it works for people, it’s a blessing…‘ah yes, through the power of prayer I received X. Hallelujah!’ When it’s denied, or overlooked, it’s ‘why o why aren’t you listening to me God!’ Perhaps he is listening; he just wanted you to drop a football and see how that feels. You know, really show you the unpredictability and unfairness of life. Then again, perhaps God was busy saving thousands from a typhoon and can’t stand football. It is airing on a Sunday after all – the supposed day of rest. That’ll show you to mess with the Lord’s day-off.

The other side of prayer that always made me give pause is when a mere mortal claims they were so blessed (through the power of prayer of course) that they were saved from some hideous tragedy or natural disaster. I remember some celebrity being quoted following the tsunami in Thailand by saying she was SO blessed because she was able to get out of there before it struck. That always made me think, so the ones that didn’t make it out weren’t blessed? Or did they speak too softly in prayer so that they were not heard? I mean, how exactly does it work? And why are some people blessed and others seem to always end up getting kicked in the head by life. These are of course questions of mine that used to drive my religion teacher crazy. She’d answer them, and in her mind ended the discussion and I’d pause, and of course come back at her with a big fat, “BUT, why?” She quickly realized that if she gave me lots of assignments to do it would shut me up for awhile. Of course, then I’d stumble upon something else that didn’t make sense in my mind and I’d have to bring this to her attention.

So, as for Mr. NFL player, if he is never going to forget dropping the ball, I wonder what he is going to make of things like old age, disease, natural disasters, and I don’t know…foreclosure on his mansion when he burns through his money at a rapid fire pace – as they all seem to do. I also can’t help but wonder if his partner/wife is asking God why she got stuck with this complaining butter fingers instead of the receiver on the opposing team that won the game?

Gawwwwd. It’s just so unfair.

Monday 29 November 2010

LIFE CHANGERS

Walter Green, a 71 year-old retired corporate CEO from San Diego, California has just completed one of the most remarkable journeys of the spiritual and cathartic sort. He traveled the world for one whole year to say thank you to 44 people who have changed his life. He cites the journey as being incredibly spiritual, one that has brought his life a ‘refocus’. He apparently does not like the word retired. I like this man in so many ways. His aim for the journey, aside from reaching out to these individuals, is to enlighten others about expressing their feelings in life before it is too late. Regrets, this man isn’t satisfied with a few, he wants none at all.

My first thought was of course one that sprung from sheer fatigue. Seriously, wouldn’t it have been a lot easier to send thank you cards? Traveling round the world and going through airport security that many times makes me want to put on four layers of clothing, knock back a double vodka and hug myself. Not to mention getting on an airplane over and over again. I don’t care how thankful I am; flying when I don’t have to is up there with root canal. You see why my path to spiritual enlightenment may take a bit longer that Walter’s.

My second thought was who are these people and what did they do that was so life changing to warrant tracking them down? And how much traveling has old Walter done in his life to explain being touched – in the good way of course - by the human race on a global scale? Did a chambermaid in Thailand that put an extra chocolate on his pillow that saved him in a diabetic moment? Did a policeman in Russia prevent him from falling on the railway tracks after ol’ Walt bought one of those fur donut hats that of course impeded his vision? Did a nice argentinian man prevent him from choking on an empanada?

These are the things I want to know of course. Who changed his life and why? I feel a book coming from Walter very very soon. I have to say that I agree with Walter wholeheartedly. I think the notion of thanking people that changed your life is not only important, but a definite pay it forward that needs to be carried out more often. Think about it, if more of us did this, it might spread like a contagious disease; everyone would be all hopped up on thanks, beaming with gratitude as they rang up old classmates and thanked them for letting them cheat off their paper. “If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve never gotten into Stanford!”….I kid I kid.

Okay, let’s see, I’m going to try and thank four people for changing my life – any more than that and my head might explode, I am a mother of a four month old after all my memory is a blur. Let’s see….Mom, thanks for deciding to have me. I wasn’t exactly planned, so I’m thinking she deserves to go to the top of the list. Thank you Doctor Defiory (how one spells that is beyond me) for being over for dinner when I almost cracked my skull open when I was three. I was convinced I could fly from my bed to my sister’s - sadly the bed frame had other ideas….thanks LG for inspiring me to write screenplays. Although it almost drove me into an asylum, it made me who I am today [if being trapped in Hollywood development for 10 years doesn’t toughen you up, nothing will]. And lastly, my partner of course. Thanks for helping me make the King. He’s a definite life changer. Cute too.

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