Why, Gilmore Girls, Why? And Other Things

So, I just spent two (okay,maybe longer, I watched other things in between) weeks watching Gilmore Girls...I have no excuse for it, I love it. The witty quips,the quick back and forth, the astonishingly great wardrobe of Lorelai Gilmore. And the Bangles finally getting credit as one of the greatest rock bands. I love this show.

Really what's not to like? The towns people are bat shit crazy, but lovable. Emily and Richard Gilmore aren't as blue blood as  they think they are, I mean they raised Lorelai, that rebellious and stubborn streak came from somewhere. I think maybe it's because I wish I had half the guts of Lorelai. She just goes out and does what she sets out to do and I keep making excuses about things and putting off writing, etc. There is nothing more that I want to do than write. It's what drives me. Yet I have a hard time writing lately. This is easy and I'm not sure why. I can write something here, have great ideas for a script but have a hard time sitting and putting my ideas down and I shouldn't. I think it has a lot to do with fear. Fear sucks and really there isn't much I fear..well maybe just a committed relationship..but that's not a fear, it's just not what I want (maybe, if the right person comes along and they wouldn't mind doing the whole Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell thing), ..... I want to write and make movies. 

Anyway, I wasted two or more weeks watching all seven seasons of the Gilmore Girls. All I have to show for it is I figured out my favorite episode, well...I at least narrowed it down. Top three A -Tisket, A-Tasket, They Shoot Gilmores, Don't They? and I Get a Sidekick Out of You. This show is just great, funny, inspirational, and fills up time when you're trying to figure out your next step. 

I have also spent a majority of the summer listening to lots of Jack White and if you know me, you're saying of course you did, Christine, you love Jack White. What can I say the guy can write music that makes me think. Also he's been in the news lately, (he and Loretta Lynn received stars on Nashville's Music City Walk of Fame in June) with a new album with The Dead Weather hitting in September and taking a break from performing live for a long while and then being added to the line up for Stephen Colbert's The Late Show. There has to be genius behind these antics, something big this way comes with Jack White. 

Jack White is just interesting. The man can write some of the best lyrics and can play any instrument out there, he makes it sound vastly different than anything else you've ever heard. Like almost everyone else I loved the White Stripes, but I don't think it was his best work, I still think that is yet to come. One thing that really makes me like Jack White is his support of local bands. He really wants people to get out and see the music that's around them and make something of their communities through music. He gets that music forms a big part of communities, something we all need to realize, so please visit places like The Hi-Dive, Meadow Lark, Larimer Lounge, The Bluebird, Summit Music Hall, and Walnut Room, all of these venues feature local artists and up and coming bands passing through on tour, so get out and support artists, you never know who might be the next big thing and you can say I saw them first.

Sorry if a lot of this is just me yammering, but sometimes to get things going you have to yammer. This got things flowing for me. I won't be taking long breaks anymore as I plan to update this blog every Wednesday morning, a plan I'm putting into action by making an article list for the future. I'm going to be working on a script and putting deadlines in place for that too, I'll mention how things are going at the end of articles just to keep myself accountable and on track. I'm also starting on a lifestyle change, I have to for myself, so will be posting about that as well, again to keep myself accountable, but mostly I will be posting about music, movies, politics and the world in general, hopefully I won't bore you all. Screw fear, it's not worth my time not getting to do what I want and set out to do. 

Family Beliefs

If my family had a list of things that we hold true, it would be the following list: 

1) Margaritas are THE family cocktail. If it's too early for margaritas, than a Bloody Mary will do, and rum drinks are always welcome. 

2)Jimmy Buffet is King. (My sister, brother and I all knew the lyrics to Why Don't We Get Drunk and Margaritaville at a young age). 

3) Dogs are the best pets. Cats, they're weird (have you seen them throw their leg over their head? WEIRD....okay I do like them and we've had a few. I mean how else are we supposed to keep the little soul sucking trolls at bay? Thanks Drew Barrymore and Cat's Eye for making me look into that mouse hole and finding a mouse). 

4) You can only have sugar laden cereals on the weekend, and really only on Saturdays and you must watch Saturday morning cartoons. I miss watching Land of the Lost and eating Frankenberry. *SIGH*

5) Going to watch movies are a regular family activity. As is forcing us all to play Yahtzee, because that one certain person always wins and they force us all to play; even though we've all actively hidden the game from that person during the week.

6) Watching your sibling cry on a bike ride is a must at least once a month. 

7)  Again movies. Lots of movies. 

8) Again watching that one sibling cry on a mountain hike...no the beautiful scenery didn't help, we could still hear the pouting and crying. 

9) Education is important, we don't allow you to be Little Yahoos forever. 

10) If you're a kid, don't bug the adults when we have company. If something happens between you and your cousins, resolve it yourself. It was like Mad Max Beyond Thunder Dome in the family room and someone might have gotten hurt, but you didn't bug the adults unless there was blood or a bone couldn't be popped into place. 

11) If there was a family activity going on, you enjoyed it and had fun. There was no complaining, you just had fun with your family. 

12)  Don't bug the parents before they get up. Make your siblings cereal and watch t.v., usually Solid Gold or WWF wrestling on Sundays. HULKMANIA!

13) Family dinner is a must. We had to eat dinner with the family almost every night unless you were spending the night down a friends house or spending time with another part of the family.

14) Your cousins are your best friends and just like your siblings. You will spend more than half your time with them so y'all better cling together and get along. Honestly though, I had the best times with my cousins and love spending time with them. I wish we spent more time together. 

 

15) There is no getting out of playing Yahtzee. 

16) The Beatles are the best band ever and as much as we like Paul McCartney, John Lennon was the better song writer. 

17) Family always has your back. 

The Hunting Ground

Sundance Film Festival premiered the documentary The Hunting Ground  at the 2015 Film festival. It's a film that I believe that all parents of young girls should watch. As a single parent of an 11 year old girl, I want to be aware of what kind of world I will be realistically sending my daughter into in a few years.

I want to believe that I am hopefully sending her somewhere that she can get an education and be safe. Unfortunately, I know that is not realistic. I know that anything can happen to her anywhere, and that right now I can some what control situations and make her aware of certain things. When she goes to college, unfortunately, it is up to her to control her surroundings. I hate that in this society we have to teach our daughters to act like victims already. What I mean by that is that we have to teach them how to think about what they are doing every minute of every day. It means that they are not allowed to let their guard down at all. So much of this is because of the way that victims are being treated when they report a rape or crime. Colleges have been ignoring  the victims and letting the rapist get away with a crime because of who they are. It's ridiculous that so many young women have been forced to see their rapist almost on a daily basis and have to sit in the same class room day after day. College has become a formidable Hunting Ground and colleges have helped perpetuate this hunting.

I know that most young men don't go to college to rape, but how much of this is peer pressure and the ignorance of other young men at colleges? It really is a shame that parents have to talk to their young sons about how not to be peer pressured into being a rapist. Really it is a shame that people need to talk to their sons about how they will be at college. I really hope that parents sit down and talk to their children about this, regardless of them being boys or girls. I don't like that I have to have a conversation with my daughter about how to protect herself when she goes to college, but really parents should be talking with their sons about this behavior. It is wrong that I have to have the responsibility to teach my daughter how to never let her guard down especially at the place where she is going to get her education, why shouldn't boys have to be talked about how their group behavior, peer pressure etc will affect peoples lives? I would really like to send my daughter out into a college world where I know that she can let her hair down once and awhile and not end up being a victim.

With that being said, please sit your child down and talk about these things regardless if they are male or female. We have to make changes for the better and talking with our children will hopefully help.

Holidays, New Year's and Writer's Block

I think I watched too much Maron, Soprano's and Downton Abby over the Holidays, which means that I had too much time off and too much down time. Plus, I was really sick so I just streamed what ever was on my watch list and just played it and well, slept. I'm starting to feel a little depressed from the over watching of Maron, but I've come to the realization that I do however need to find my own version of Kyle. Not sure where I can find someone that will pin all their self worth on me though.

Anyway the Holidays...love Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I'm glad the gift buying is over. I don't mind shopping and doing the whole gift thing since really the only people I shop for anymore is my kid and my niece and nephew, so really have nothing to complain about. It's just hectic and I sometimes feel the need to yell hatefully at other shoppers when they get in my way or do something stupid, (the over watching and listening of Maron is coming to the surface). Christmas was fun even though I was sick as heck. We just watched the kid open gifts, watched movies and ordered Chinese food. It was nice not to have to worry about what we were having and having to make a meal. Plus we had cookies and junk so really no need to add more to the house....but fattening Chinese food is always good.

New Years, I spent with the kid. It was calm, we played Wii, ate party food, i.e. mini hotdogs wrapped in puff pastry, etc. We watched Dick Clarks' Rockin' New Years Eve, but it isn't as good or as cool as when he was alive. It actually really sucked, I think next year we will go somewhere, not sure where you can take an 11 year old on New Years, but need to find somewhere to take her, I just can't stand Ryan Seacrest and the shows format is awful anymore.

I really didn't mean for this blog to be whiny and self serving, like I said too much Maron makes me whiny. Anyway, Holidays kind of stressful but fun. There were cookies, fudge and lots of chocolate so it was a good time all around. I don't get how people can not like the holidays, the lights, the sometimes snow, and the music and the food....okay the food can be crazy because it's not what we would normally eat at all, but hey it's celebration time. It just kind of makes me wonder why food plays such a big part of all of our society's celebrations. I guess it's because it's what brings people together. One thing I hate about New Years is the resolution. I don't get it. I don't really make resolutions, I really try to just make changes and set goals...which I sometimes don't make. I'm going to try to do a list of adverbs that I will try to keep to this year, which I think may work better. I'm just going to try and make some changes.

So I think that I have a case of the writer's block. I can put things down here and be okay with it but sitting down and working on a story or a script has been really hard. I have an idea and I can play it in my head but writing it down has been really hard lately. I think I need to meditate and do yoga more...or I just need to write. I hate not being able to bring my ideas to fruition. I really want to work on getting something published. I'd really like to make a movie or get the process started on making a movie this year, but I need funding. I guess I could always sell a kidney or other vital organ to get things going....or I could always start a go fund me account or something, but really I would like to work with a company that has the money to do independent movies, like Netflix, Amazon, or HBO. It would be a start at something.

I didn't mean for this entry to be so self serving, but things are what they are right now. I will more than likely be writing another entry about the attacks in Paris last week. But for now Je suis Charlie.

Just need to get something off my chest

So awhile ago I had to go to a Child Support conference with my daughters father and he said something that really cheezed me off. So for some reason I wrote a poem and I now feel like sharing it with people. I think I just feel the need to vent. Please bare with me while I do so.

Note to My Daughter's Father

You can be mad at me 

and try to blame me 

for the loss of your 

relationship with your 

daughter, but I know

that I gave you every 

opportunity to be her father. 

From the moment that 

she was born I gave 

you the opportunity to 

be the man and father 

that she needed, instead

you turned a blind eye, 

and turned a spotlight 

onto drugs, alcohol and 

criminal mischief. 

You turned a blind eye

to her needs till it 

suited your life and you 

needed something to care 

about to make you feel better 

about yourself. 

When you came into her 

life at three years old, 

meeting her for the first 

time in a Therapist's office, 

she asked you, "Why didn't 

you want me?" 

It was a question I hadn't 

prompted her with, a question 

she had not asked me about you, 

but a question she needed an 

answer from you, but 

you didn't answer it. 

Instead a year and a half later, 

you left again. 

During your time around her

you wanted her to call you "Daddy"

when in her mind you weren't. 

You were upset by the fact 

that she calls her Uncle Dad 

and wanted her to stop. 

But the fact is he is. 

He's the one who stepped up, 

bought diapers, clothes, 

played with her, watched 

Sesame Street, spent countless 

hours making her laugh, changed 

her diapers, paced the floor with her 

when she was sick, snuggled watching 

movies, taught her how to swim, 

talk and walk and was there for all 

her firsts, while you were out in 

a drug fueled haze. 

He's her dad. 

You've recently come back around 

surprised that she doesn't want to 

to see you, telling me and the 

Child Support Counselor, 

"Oh, well I have my son."

My daughter is not replaceable. 

She is a person who you should 

have respect for because no matter what 

she is your daughter. 

You hear all this noise from 

biological fathers about 

how they have to fight for 

time, etc. for most of them 

I feel the pain and understand, 

but for you I have none, 

because you blatantly 

threw it way for a high. 

You have no one to blame 

but yourself, you had 

more opportunities than most

and threw them all away. 

You can't blame me, because I tried, 

for my daughter I tried and made sure 

she knew that I've tried.

I will never feel bad when I tell her,

"Hey he's the one who is missing out not you. 

You are amazing and it's his loss, not yours."

You have no one to blame for the way 

things turned out but yourself and 

you have to deal with that, not me, not her,

but you. 

I just needed to vent and get this off my chest, feeling a bit better now. Next post will be better. 

The Thing About Robin Williams

It's taken me a long time to write about the passing of Robin Williams. Mostly because I had a lot to think about. He was a man who, unbeknownst to him, spent a lot of time in my life.

Mork and Mindy was one of the first shows that I watched on a regular basis. Here was this quirky, weird guy with all these voices and here I was, a pudgy little 3 and half year old, how could he not win me as a fan? He did and swiftly.  My favorite part in the show every week was when he would report back to Ork and tell them what he learned on earth that day. There was always something to learn from it, like you should treat people with respect because then they will respect you and that even though your neighbor is bat shit crazy, you never let on that you know that he is and you treat him like everyone else. Also, if you want to be the first male cheerleader you really do need more than curiosity and eagerness. Confidence, you need confidence. And that is one thing that Robin Williams had tons of.

Not only was he a wonderful comedienne, but he was an amazing character actor. Two of my favorite movies with Robin Williams are The World According To Garp and Moscow on the Hudson. Williams' Garp gave him more character than he had in the book, giving him more credit than just the son of a feminist. Why is Moscow on the Hudson one of my favorite Williams roles? I'm not really sure, the movie just brought what it would be like to be a scared newly arrived immigrant who had just defected.  His character, Vladimir, gives up everything to stay in America, which I thought was extremely brave, I was also only 11 when I watched the film for the first time. I just really liked the movie, whatever it was that resonated with me when I was 11, still resonates with me today as I re-watched the film again recently.

I wish that Mr.Williams knew how much he added to my life, not only with his willingness to make others laugh, but to make me aware that in order to make people laugh you also have to deal with the sad things in life, like homelessness, poverty, mental illness and addictions in the world. He never shied away from talking about his own mental illness and addictions or his work with the homeless. He showed that if you have good fortune you must give back to help make things better for other people, which is what he did when he made other people laugh. When you laugh it lifts you in more ways than one; it can brighten a room.

It saddens me that a man who brought so many people so much happiness had so much sadness inside himself. What saddens me even more is that he knew that he made people happy, he had to know that because when he made us laugh he lit up even more, it was like we were feeding the brightest light in the world. Many people say, " Oh if only he had gotten the help he needed" when you're in a depression like he was there is no way out, to you there is only one way out and that's it, there are no other options. Having been depressed, I know, the only thing that kept me from falling down the hole was thinking about what it would do to my daughter, she already has one parent that has opted out on her, what would it do to her if the other did the same? I couldn't do that to her so instead I went to counseling (luckily the college that I was attending at the time had free mental health care for their students, there should be more clinics like it around). I was extremely lucky that I had a really great support system in my mother and brother; without their help who knows what would've happened. I'm not saying that Mr.Williams didn't have a good support team behind him, he obviously did, but when you're dealing with a physical disease, like Parkinson or Lewy bodies disease (which it has been determined by coroners that he had)  that will take you away from the people and the thing that makes you, you. I wouldn't want to live that way, to watch myself slip away and not be able to control it, would be heartbreaking and I wouldn't want my family to see me have to suffer through it. I would want them to remember me as I had been: outgoing, energetic and doing the things that I love, not suffering and having to be told who they were and what we were doing.

It breaks my heart that he is gone, but I am so happy that I had the chance and honor to witness the genius that was Mr.Robin Williams and I thank his family for sharing him with the world.

"If heaven exists, to know that there's laughter, that would be a great thing," Robin Williams 1951-2014

November Birthday Memory

My dad's birthday was last week on Veterans' Day. I was going to post something last week, but I thought it was better that the day be focused on our Veterans, who don't get enough recognition in my opinion.

My dad was killed in an auto vs. bicycle accident on April 7, 1991. It was tragic and it affected my life and my families lives in so many ways there just isn't enough space here to talk about how his death changed our lives. Anyway, in the months leading up to his death, my dad was working in California for the cabinetry and carpentry company that he worked for, they had landed a contract that required that they send some of the guys out to complete the work. My birthday is November 5th, he was going to be gone at that time, but he was going to be back around Thanksgiving. My mom took me to dinner at  Imperial Chinese restaurant here in Denver, one of my favorite places,(they have the best Seafood Bird's nest, I don't think anyone else serves this), it's one memory of my birthday's that sticks out, it was my 15th birthday and I had a great time with my mom. This birthday doesn't just stick out because of the dinner, spending time with my mom; it'll always stick out because when my dad came back into town he brought me a present, "The Best Loved Poems of the American People" selected by Hazel Felleman. I loved reading and was really into poetry at the time and he had found the book at a bookstore close to where he was staying in Los Angeles.  I loved the book, not only because of the amazing poems it had in it, but because he knew me well enough to know that it would become one of my favorite possessions. This book has gone one trips with me, moved with me when I moved out and to four different apartments/houses and has become well worn and loved.

When my dad gave me the book he had marked a few poems he thought that I would like his favorite that he had read was "The Ship" by Charles Mackay. It's about death, and I've always found it odd that this was one of the poems that he was reading just months before his death, he was also  reading "Go to the Widow Maker" by James Jones, about a playwright who becomes obsessed with deep-sea diving, odd coincidences, but interesting enough to make you 'hmm". My dad loved warm climates, was a professional bicyclist (even though to him it was probably just a hobby, he was a professional bicyclist, he was in quite a few races and rode with a few teams here in Colorado), a carpenter, a harmonica player, an avid Jimmy Buffet fan and dad who made certain his kids knew he was there for them any time they needed him. He was a really great guy. He made my childhood, and my sister and brother's a lot of fun, we have a lot of memories, for that I'm grateful. It was as Jimmy Buffet said "I'm sorry it's ended/It's sad but it's true/Honey it's been a lovely cruise".

"The Ship"

by Charles Mackay

A King, a pope, and a kaiser, 

And a queen -most fair was she-

Went sailing, sailing, sailing, 

Over a sunny sea. 

And amid them sat a beggar,

A churl of low degree;

And they all went sailing, sailing, 

Over the sunny sea. 

And the king said to the kaiser,

And his comrades fair and free, 

"Let us turn adrift this beggar, 

This Churl of low degree, 

For he taints the balmy odors

That blow to you and me, 

As we travel -sailing, sailing, 

Over the sunny sea." 

"The ship is mine," said the beggar-

That churl of low degree- 

"And we're all of us sailing, sailing, 

To the grave o'er the sunny sea;

And you may not and cannot

Get rid of mine, or me;

No! not for your crowns and scepters-

And my name is Death!" quoth he.