Web Discoveries: Yoga Dawg, Creative Little Daisy

Yes the internet can be a terrible thing, all manner of crime and fraud, and much worse. But it's also a great thing. Take, for example, research. Who needs the public library, with all those kids on myspace, when you can stay home and read wikipedia. And if you're Bill Gates, you can use wiki as false advertising. Ooh let's not go there.

But here's to the good stuff. It was on the internet that I discovered my husband; through emails I fell in love with his words, and his love of words, and him. And on his blog I found more of who he was and more to love.

I've discovered some terrific blogs, too; like The View from Wood Road. For more, check my LINKS at left.

My Latest Discoveries: I love yoga, but yoga can be as dogmatic as church and as cliquish as high school. You know, you gotta have the right clothes, yoga mat bag, hair, the right mantra. So it was with sniggering delight I found the Yoga Dawg Website and his blog: My Third Eye Itches. Check out his page on Yoga Styles where he satirizes the too-serious, too-hip yoga joints, like his skewering of the "hot yoga" school. The "Crombies."

This school of Yoga has managed to blend all of the things America love most: a limited set of yoga poses for the attention deficient Yogi, sex scandals, copyright litigation along with hot, sweaty and half naked bims and bimbos in a tropical heat. Combine this with a swarmy, smelly studio led by a loud-mouth, swaggering Yoga Star swinging a big dick with a couple of radioactive balls and you have a winning formula for the Yogic success in America.

And his page on Yoga Fashion, where you too can look like a winning yogi, including getting your yogic beard extensions, and Super Shakti Yogi Loin Cloth.

Hey, it's all in fun!

I was doing a search for "aqua and brown," the color combination I used for my website and then my wedding. From this search I found some really cool images, and more: gorgeous purses at Creative Little Daisy. This woman makes amazing tactile art in the way of handbags and other usable delights.

And if you are looking for a way cool yoga mat bag, visit Wendyloo.

Not that I'm doing any internet shopping or editing wiki for money. Not now , I'm too busy writing.

The Nice Jesus On Every Wall

Three weeks into my sixth-grade year at Prince of Peace Lutheran Day School, I got sent to the principal's office. My family were loyal members of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, and I'd been attending POP Day school since I was four. This was the first time I had ever gotten into trouble.

It was also the first time I had stood up for myself.

As I sat on that hard wooden bench, waiting for Miss Olson, the retired-missionary principal, to come out and paddle me, I looked up at the picture of Jesus on the wall.

You might know it: Head of Christ was painted by Warner Sallman in the 1930s, and is arguably the most famous portrait of Jesus from the 20th Century. Not like Jesus had his portrait done, but you know what I mean.

Painted in humble, muted yellowy browns; a kind Norwegian-looking Jesus sits there, looking calm, sober, and slightly depressed. His eyes turn upward, as if he's listening to the Father. Maybe God is just now telling him he's going to be crucified, and Jesus is steeling himself for the sacrifice ahead.

Sallman painted a lot of pictures of Jesus. He must have had some old Lutheran friend stand in as a model, because Jesus always has the same long brown hair, square Nordic forehead, delicate features and sad eyes.

There's Christ Our Shepherd: Jesus tending sheep in the Alps. There's even a black sheep, though it is placed in the background. And then there's my favorite: Christ At Heart's Door: Jesus knocking on the door of your heart. Well it's really a farmhouse door, like a Thomas Kincade, painted before they invented anti-yellowing agents. But I saw the love and patience in Jesus' eyes as he stood there knocking. Like he would have stood there forever, waiting for me to open the door. "Oh Jesus don't be sad, I would pray, "I'm here, I’m here opening the door!" That was my favorite of the paintings.

But the one I knew the most was Head of Christ, or the "Nice Jesus" as I called it. And it hung in every classroom, pastor's study and toilet at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church and School.

I spent many a day praying to the Nice Jesus on the wall: Jesus please raise my kitty from the dead ... Jesus, please make Toddie Williams love me ... Jesus please make my dad stop cursing. Jesus didn't answer many of my prayers. But that was okay. I knew he was listening, and I knew that he loved me.I saw the love and concern in his eyes. I saw his loneliness and sorrow, so I knew that He saw mine.

That's my image of Jesus: Jesus who loved, who listened, who never left; and who rarely intervened. Which was why I was in Miss Olson's office the third week of Sixth Grade.

My early years at Prince of Peace Lutheran School had been happy and uneventful. My mother was a timid Norwegian Lutheran who took her four children to church every Sunday while Dad stayed home and cursed at the TV. My brothers were already in public junior high; it was too late to reach them for Jesus. But my older sister Nancy and I attended the day school from kindergarten through sixth grade.

All of my teachers were little old retired spinster missionaries who smiled and turned the other cheek. My pastor, Torvald Ingebretsen, was a gentle man who never got angry, except when he preached on the Old Testament. In fact, no one at my church ever got angry. Which is why my dad rarely went to church. My anger was why I was in the principal's office.

Since my first day of fourth grade, I had been openly bullied by a Lutheran sociopath. Lisa Shanahan kicked my chair in choir when I got a choir solo. Oh, you think you're so cool! Bang, bang, my chair vibrated. She ridiculed me when I got better grades than she did. Oo, Susie wrote a poem! A poem about Egypt! DORK! The other girls laughed with her, terrified she might turn on them next. One day I got her out in Four Square. She got the girls to whisper and ridicule me, through the rest of the day, the rest of the week. For three years.

Oh sure, my friends would come to me in secret. Susie, we really like you. We just don't want Lisa to get mad at us. I believed them. How could anyone Lisa? Still, nowhere was safe, not even Girl Scouts: Lisa's mother was the troop leader, and they worked as a team. Camp outs were hell. I was alone.

Susie, my mother sat me down on her bed. This was the one and only time I ever remember my mother sitting me down to give me some parental guidance. Susie, I hear you say you're angry a lot. And that's not good. Because if you're angry, people won't like you. Well, that really pissed me off. I was angry was because Lisa was bullying me at my own birthday party in our house! And Mommy wasn't stopping it. Mommy never stopped it.

This torment went on for three years. My kind spinster missionary teachers told me to forgive Lisa and turn the other cheek. My friends came to me in secret: Susie we arelly like you! We just don't want her to turn on us. But my mother?

Mom, go tell Mrs. Shanahan to make Lisa stop!
My mother got flustered. I can't! I can't face her! She's too bossy.
Then talk to Miss Olson? I countered.
Susie, mom's voice trailed off a moment. Her voice came back trembling and scared. Susie, I can't handle your problems, you have to learn to resolve your own arguments!
But I didn't argue with her, Mommy! I didn't do anything!

My mother turned her back to me and wept.
I had no one.

But I had Jesus. I'd read about Jesus in the Bible, how he healed the sick and stood up for the weak and defenseless, and how he loved the unlovable. That was me.

Jesus was my invisible buddy who listened and loved me. The fact that he also loved Lisa made him a traitor or a wimp. But then, no one had stood up for me. Not the spinster missionary teachers. Not my callow friends. Not my mother. My father never came to church except to criticize the sound system. At least Jesus had the excuse of being too busy with the Viet Nam War.

So I trusted him. I spent many afternoons staring up at the Picture of the Nice Jesus on the wall. I prayed to him as Lisa kicked my chair or cackled to my gutless friends. "Please Jesus, make her stop. Please Jesus, make her nice. Please Jesus, make her die."

Jesus sat there, looking upward, listening only to his Heavenly Father. I hoped God was telling Jesus about it. Maybe Jesus was so sad, because he loved me and he couldn’t intervene.

So that is how I ended up in Principal Olson's office.

Three weeks prior, on the first day of Sixth Grade, I walked into class, only to discover that Wendy Barnes, the only girl who'd ever stood up for me, had left for Tewinkle, the public junior high. Lisa had planted herself in the seat behind mine, ready for one last year of taunting and torture and tyranny.

That afternoon I went straight home and found my mother in the back yard.

Mom, I want to go to Tewinkle.

Mom kept her back toward as she watered her irises, for what seemed like an eternity. The water spilled over into the strawberry troughs, and on into her nasturtiums. My mother put a lot of work into her garden. It was her outlet for being ignored by my father. Like she was ignoring me now.

Mom? I repeated after a long silence.

Finally Mother's back heaved and her voice pinched up into sob. "Why do you want to leave Prince of Peace?"
She was acting like I wanted to leave Jesus. But I didn't I wanted to leave Jesus, I just didn't want to be bullied anymore.

Mom began to cry openly. I went inside the house. Nothing more was said.

Three weeks later I was in Miss Olson's office. As I looked up at the Nice Jesus on the wall, I realized how much He reminded me of my mother: Maybe because they were both brown-haired, Norwegian, and depressed.

Miss Olson came out of her office and sat down next to me on the bench.
Susie, do you know why you're here?

I did. That afternoon, Lisa had hit me out in a game of prison ball. And she was on my team. Prison ball is like Dodge ball played in teams on a soccer field. Once you're hit with the ball you go to the goalie, and all you can do is throw the ball to one of your team members in the game so they can get an opponent out.

Lisa was hit out almost immediately. So she stood with the goalie, simmering every throw that I was still in the game. As other members of our team got out and joined her at the goal, she began her diabolical plan. She whispered to them. When they got the ball, oops! They didn't throw it to me; they threw it to the other team, so the other team could get ME out. That's all she wanted. She wanted me out. But I was fast and agile and angry. I dodged the bit fat red ball aimed right at me. Or I caught it and hurled it back at my opponent, getting them out instead. I was going to win.

Lisa had each side chanting for my demise. Girls are catty and fickle. And the boys, well boys always love watching girls fight. It was down to two players on our team. Me and Becky Knapp, a retarded girl who limped. She'd been ignored most of the game. Finally Lisa slipped the swollen rubber ball to Willie Snow and he slammed me, hard. The ball dropped. I was out. Becky the Retard was the only one left.

I ran straight for the goalie. Straight for Lisa. She was squealing in delight. My face was throbbling with adrenaline. I grabbed her thick red pony tail, and spun her around like a lasso with her head on the end. Like you spin way you pick up a toddler and swing them for play. Only this wasn't for play. This was for everything.

I let go and Lisa skidded several feet along the blacktop before stopping in a puddle of scrapes and terrified screams. The boys erupted in whoops and applause. Lisa ran off wailing. Her mother came to pick her up, threatening to remove her from POP forever. We could only hope.

My girl friends came over to reassure me they'd always liked me. I shoved them away and waited for the PE Coach to drag me to the office.

Susie, do you know why you're here? Miss Olson repeated.

"Because of Lisa?"

No. Miss Olson surprised me. "Because your mother says you're not happy here. Is that true, Susie? Are you not happy at Prince of Peace?"

I thought of my mother crying. Crying on Miss Olson's shoulder because her daughter wanted to leave Jesus. So I said nothing.

"Well, Susie. I think things will change after today." She smiled put a coupon for an ice cream in my hand, and sent me home. In good Lutheran fashion, Miss Olsen had turned the other cheek.

As I walked out, I looked up the picture of the Nice Jesus on the wall. Silent and sad and immovable. I prayed, "Please Jesus. Please understand."

Oh No. I Bought An Oprah!

Okay, Iadmit it. I bought a copy of Oprah! magazine today. Wait: is the ! reserved for her TV show title? Oprah! Maybe she's eliminated the ! altogether. It not the Oprah empire large enough that it needs an exclamation point to get noticed? Wait, I just checked. Her magazine is just O. She's more famous than Madonna. She's just a letter.

So, I bought my first copy of O, The Oprah Magazine today. I had to do 45 minutes of cardio at the gym and had nothing to read (I can't do cardio without something to distract me. I might realize what a waste of life it is to be running in place on a stationary machine in a gym run by minimum-wage college drop-outs, while real life is going on outside in the sunshine)..

So I stopped by the grocery store to buy something to read. I'd finished Vanity Fair, I had several New Yorkers at home. Vons was limited to Women's Day, LA Latino Angeleno, and the glossy gossip rags OK! In Touch! People was outdated. Justin and Cameron's breakup? Sooo last week. The current US Weekly cover story was on "Britney's New Man." Britney doesn't even have time to put on underwear, and she's had time to find a new man? Why is this news? Why do we care? Why is this happening? No. No I can't buy that magazine.

I am also trying to distract myself from my growing suspicion that America is truly falling apart in a this-time-it's-for-real-folks fashion. in a Rome Is Burning, can't you smell it? No, because you've got your head so far up up britney spears smelly uncovered ass,that's why you can't smell ROME BURNING!

The only justifiable magazine left was O. I perused the cover. . "David Sedaris gets dumped!" on the cover. I love most everything he writes. Something else about improving your relationship without taaaaaalking about it. Compared to everything else, this was Chaucer. I bought it, went to the gym, hopped on the elliptical trainer and read.

David Sedaris' piece was three short paragraphs. It was a series of Firsts. My First Crush, My first Job (Donna Karan), My First Day Off (Colin Powell). I was disappointed I only got three paragraphs of Sedaris, but the rest of it was pretty good. An article written Lance Armstrong's ex (not Sheryl) on how to get over. Pretty good..

There was an article about couples with at least 10 years difference in age. It was fascinating in a train wreck kind of way. I admit this is x sexist, but it wasn't the older men/younger women who made me squirm. It was the younger men. Men who were 10 to 18 years younger. For on thing, only one of the pairings were married, and many of them had only been together for two years. Come on, you’re not really a couple until you buy real estate or have kids.

I guess it made me squirm because I recognized myself. I almost always dated men who were younger. In retrospect, I was avoiding dealing with myself, by dating men who needed babysitting. Larry is 7 years older than me. Given our age, experience, maturity, life experience, he’s just such a great fit. For Me. And I have to deal with myself.

I’ve still got to read that article about “how to improve your relationship by not talking about it.” And I haven’t gotten to the Oprah-worship pages. I’m worried about that.

But I did notice Oprah's Mission Calendar. This month Oprah's mission is Love. The Banner read:

Let love rule—give it your best, and receive it with open arms.

Who wrote that? That's just horrible. Fingernails on a blackboard horrible.

Look, Oprah does a lot of great things for people. She has amazing power and influence, and I respect her. The fact she has all that and is black and a woman makes me smile, considering the role minorities and women have played in our culture. Good on you Oprah! But she’s just a little too ... self-focused?

Maybe I should sample more Oprah before I make generalizations about her media empire. But what other celebrity has her face on the cover every month? I have several friends who love Oprah. One of them, I am no longer friends with. Because took Oprah's self-actualization, self-worship theology too seriously.

One afternoon I was at the gym and they had Oprah on the TV. Susan Sarandon was on to promote a movie. Oprah asked her about a Susan was part of wherein she bought a sheep for a mother in Africa. Susan talked about how the sheep empowered that family, and how it really touched her as well.

Oprah then said, “Well we have flown that African Mother out to the studio today!” and Susan and the matriarch had a startled, overjoyed reunion.

Then Oprah announced she was giving 50, count em, 50 sheep to that village! Wow Oprah! Susan may have given one. But you just gave fifty. Mad me think of that verse in Matthew: Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired ... don't shout about it as the hypocrites do ... they have received all the reward they will ever get ... Give your gifts in secret, and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you.”

Again I know she goes great stuff. More than I have ever done. But if she’s going to call down James Frey for writing a fiction book and calling it nonfiction, why hasn't she called Tom Cruise back to excoriate him for acting out an entire fictional life on camera? Come on Girl! You can do it!

If I ever get to meet Oprah, I will probably brown nose her, stumble over how much I respect her and how she's helped so many people self-actualize, and how I admired her ... in The Color Purple. And that will all be true. Hopefully she won't ask me how I like her show. I might have to lie.

Grazers at Whole Foods

Today I went to Whole Foods. Not because I like the place, but because it sells the food I need to buy. Plus, I was meeting my friend Mim for lunch, and their café sells food I eat. So I arrived early and wrote until Mim got there.

I've written about my distaste for the snobs who shop there. Forget that a lot of my friends shop there; I mean the overall clientèle. The rich, privileged Westsiders who are educated about the benefits of organic food, but willfully ignorant of the dangerous toxins of being an asshole.

Where else can you get organic goat milk gouda, or cumin encrusted sheep's milk Jalisco? Today the shoppers were relatively calm. Although one man shoved his way toward the bulk chocolate trail mix and did not write the price code on his tag. (this helps the cashier from having to look up the item from a list of hundreds of codes. Not for him, this man was important. He needed his organic chocolate fix. We needed to move. I had to ask a woman to let me past her cart to get an item from the shelf, which she was blocking. She was not happy about it. I beamed, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I took my food to the café and took out a notebook. I was having writers block at home. had forgot the freedom of writing long hand, with a real pen and ink, in my own organic scrawl. I wrote a lot. Last March I was in New York for a week, and my friend Chris Myers and I went to the Whole Foods at Columbus Circle to write. Getting one of those round booths was an ordeal. And you had to show your receipt that you bought food there in order to stay. but we got the booths and we wrote up a storm.

I remember my most prolific writing period: it was when my life had seemingly fallen apart, I couldn't stop crying, so I went to anonymous cafes, wore sunglasses, put on the headphones and wrote. And wrote. I can't say that the material was much good. But the act of writing helped me get through the day. And eventually got me to write good stuff. It was good to sit there and work.

Today, I noticed a segment of the population I haven't noticed at Whole Foods before: single old men. There were at least three old men eating there by themselves. Two of them were quite old and shuffled, hunchback, to their tables, to consume their lunch.

Little old men make me cry. They seem so helpless and lonely. Little old women do fine. They're home making their lunch. And afterward, they'll have knitting and cross stitch to do. But what can little old men do?

One man managed to get his plate to the table next to me. He sat facing my direction on the far corner of the table. I wondered if this was his only hot meal of the day. Maybe he opens a can of Campbells at night. I wondered if he was ever married, if he had family close by. I wondered if he felt lonely or he liked his life just as it was.

At one point he was looking blankly for a napkin, so I got him one. He smiled and told me he had dropped his, and couldn't reach for it. I smiled and continued to write, because I didn't want him to see I had teared up.

The New York Times published an article this week stating that for the first time in recorded history, the majority of American women are living without a spouse. Whether they're divorced, widowed, never married, or living with someone they're not married to; they're alone.

And I realized again why Whole Foods does well. It creates the home cooked meals for those who don't have a home at home. Who don't have a family to cook for or eat with. I wondered what Whole Foods is going to look like in 30 years. Maybe we'll see more old ladies here. Ladies who never learned to cook for a husband or family. Ladies who have no one to knit for or crochet.

I thought how our culture is in such deep trouble. We are so isolated from each other and ourselves.

One of the lies of Whole Foods is that incidental salvation can be found in buying better food. It may be good food, and it may be healthy for you. But Whole Foods is nothing like the average Mom & Pop health food stores that are run by aging hippies who grow their own wheat grass and ride the bus. Whole Foods has a creepy cultish feeling to it. Like you've walked into a pagan temple only the rich can enter. It makes me uneasy. I realize there's always something good underneath a popular movement, or else it wouldn't be popular. But I will make an effort to patronize Rainbow Acres and The Co-Op and LifeSource before I go back to Whole Foods.

Mim arrived and we chatted for a while. I noticed during the course of our lunch another man had come in on his own. Only he wasn't a sweet little old man. He was a chubby middle class baby boomer man. Baseball cap, Bubba Gump sweatshirt, and a stack of mail. Maybe he'd recently separated and stopped to get his mail at the house before his estranged wife got home from her broker job.

What drew our attention was, he kept going up to the soup bins and taking samples of the soup. You know those little plastic cups they provide for you to scoop out salad dressing? They can't be bigger than 1/8 of a cup. He kept going over to the soup and 'sampling it.' At first, he pretended to be curious about it, as if this, his fourth sample, was only his first. But then he went back, took yet another sample, and returned to his mail.

I noticed soon afterward that a slightly anorexic woman in a sophisticated track suit and a severe face lift was doing the same thing. Sampling the soup and going back to her table. She didn't have a stack of mail to read. She just sat there.

We stared at Bubba. Perhaps he felt our stares, because he collected his mail and left his table. He proceeded to go to back to the soup tureen, only this time he did take one of their paper soup container. Yet rather than ladle out soup and going to pay, he stood in front of the tureen, drank it down, and refilled his container. It wasn't until a woman stood behind him, waiting to get in, did he leave. And got back to his table. He rummaged for his keys in his big fat shorts.

Oh my gosh is he going to leave and not pay?
I envisioned myself running after him and saying, "hey fat ass, go back and pay for your soup."
I asked Mim what we should do. Turn him in!
But he eventually walked toward the counter to pay. For a meager 6 oz container of soup, when he'd probably consumed a quart.

I wonder how Jesus would react? Would he have compassion for them? Or would he think they were selfish brats, like I do? Or would he look at me and say, "beware of the pharisee who sits in the temple saying, "I'm better than these people because I pray and fast, and I tithe."

Tired of Tofu

I've been a new food plan that's good and clean and healthy. And for the most part it's been good. However, I am tired. Tired of tofu. Weary of its tasteless, boring, bleak appearance and texture. I know they say that tofu can take the flavor of anything you put on it. But I can't put chocolate sauce and whipped cream on it. Not on my new food program.

I'm also tired of cooking. Tired of cooking and chopping and chewing. I'm especially weary of chewing. One good thing about a Snickers. In four easily swallowed bites you've downed 300 calories. But try downing 300 calories worth of carrots? Or red peppers? Man that takes time. And chewing.

The good thing is, bed time is only two hours away, and a new day on the other side. And that means, OATMEAL. Which is so much more flavorful than tofu. Especially with sugar.

No, Susan NO.

Christopher Hitchens Jumps The Shark

Some of y'uns were asking, so here it is: the full text of my Response to Hitchens, previously posted on Burnside Writers Collective. BTW: Graydon Carter is the Editor in Chief of Vanity Fair.

Ah Graydon, we thought we knew ye. But you have been sucked into the swirling eddy of a drowning man. Christopher Hitchens’ neo-con politics aren’t sexy any more, on account of the whole Iraq War thingy, and Hitchens being a grumpy atheist British drunk. So now Hitchens is reaching for attention, as evidenced in his latest (and we hope, his last) article for your December issue: “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”

I can just see Hitchens in the Vanity Fair story meeting, desperate to convince you, VF's editor, while draining his last bottle of Peach Schnapps.

Hitchens: On me life, Graydon, people’ll buy the Chrissimus issue, just for me article.
Graydon: But Pro-Rumsfeld stories are dead …
Hitchens: Wait for it, Wait for it. You ready? “Why Women Aren’t Funny.”
Graydon: Just because they’re not laughing at YOUR jokes.

And therein lies Hitchens’ faulty reasoning. Just because the media doesn’t reward funny women doesn't mean funny women don’t exist. For men to complain that there aren’t enough funny women is like the Nazis complaining there were no more Jews in Warsaw.

You got rid of us.

Men don’t want women to be funny; you just want us to look good in a thong.

Hitchens says that “the chief task in life that a man has to perform is that of impressing the opposite sex,” and that humor is his best shot at winning a woman. That may be true, humor is a big aphrodisiac for women. But then Hitchens claims women don’t need to work at attracting men: “you’re already appealing.”

I beg to differ. If “Ugly Betty” doesn’t say it all, there’s this whole cottage industry called Women’s Magazines, and the covers don’t advertise stories about how women are fine just as we are. They don’t show a woman how to win a man by using her biting, incisive wit. Not even with her non-threatening apple-pie wit. They’re all about how to get a man by losing ten pounds, using the right lip gloss and getting Jennifer Aniston’s Japanese flat perm.

Let me reiterate: men don’t want women to be funny; men just want women to look good in a thong. And this says more about men’s inability to value humor than it does about a woman’s inability to be funny.

Hitchens admits that humor could be threatening. “If humor is a sign of intelligence, perhaps men do not want women to be funny. They want them as an audience, not as rivals.” Well now, that’s the first bit of honest writing the man has done.

But he doesn’t go anywhere with it. He writes that, for women, “cunning minxes that they are,” humor is secondary to our higher calling of bearing children: a job so wondrous and serious a matter, we can never laugh about it.

Hitchens has never been to a MOPS meeting or a baby shower or Chick Night. I get together with my women friends once a month. We eat chocolate and cheese, drink wine, and laugh our Over Size Zero asses off with stories about men, dating, sex, and yes even episiotomy scars. But those meetings are kept private under a sacred, solemn oath; so I cannot disclose their grave and mysterious content.

And excuse me: cunning minx? Who calls a woman a cunning minx? Hitchens little Mickey Spillane and phoned it in. What a hack.

——
Hitchens is not completely off base. It’s quite true: there are far more successful funny men than funny women in entertainment (I assume we’re omitting the clowns in politics, economics and astrophysics). Check the cast list of TV and film comedies: it’s always an average, dopey but likable guy, cast opposite a hot woman. Jim Belushi and Courtney Thorne Smith. Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston/Renee Zellwegger/Jenny McCarthy (no Jenny, standing with your mouth agape in a silent scream doesn’t make you funny).
Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsale. Will Ferrell and Christina Applegate. Will Ferrell and Leslie Bibb in “Talladega Nights”. Who in the H-E-Double toothpicks was Leslie Bibb? Just the latest charmless pretty girl. Fat-boy Kevin James got Amber Valetta in “Hitch”. Who are we kidding?

There are many funny women in entertainment: Molly Shannon, Anna Gasteyer, Tia Leoni, Amy Poehler. Diane Keaton. But you don’t see Hollywood developing sitcoms with Anna Gasteyer getting it on with Josh Duhamel, or Molly Shannon bedding George Clooney. Even pairing Diane Keaton with Jack Nicholson in “Something’s Gotta Give” was scandalous, she was so close to his age.

Hitchens was also correct that there are far more male standup comedians than there are women. But standup comedy is solo venture, in a dark, lonely, competitive, and solipsistic atmosphere. Women are more relational. We're better at improvisational comedy. Look at the successful women who came out of Second City and The Groundlings: Edie McClurg, Jula Sweeney, Julie Louis-Dreyfuss; Gasteyer, Shannon, Poehler. And let's not forget the amazing Tina Fey, erstwhile head writer on SNL, who now helms her own new comedy, 30 Rock.


I don't believe think Hollywood’s beauty bar was set so high forty or fifty years ago. Leading women had to be attractive, of course; but they didn’t have to be smokin’ hot. Take for example Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell. In “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” it was Jean Arthur who saved Jimmy Stewart, using her humor and intelligence. Lucille Ball was pretty, but she wasn’t Greta Garbo.

So what changed?

Sex.

Well, sex and the decline of Western Culture. But let’s start with sex. We all know that when dating, if we don’t jump into bed right away, we might be forced to talk to each other, and become attracted on more lasting qualities such as intelligence and humor. The same is true in films and television. Actresses could carry a picture based on their humor and intelligence. Even sexy movies, like “To Have or Have Not”, were sexier for their subtlety.

Since the sexual revolution, women were free to have sex with no repercussions; and men were free to desire women solely for sex, with no repercussions. Playboy had a lot to do with turning women into mute, two-dimensional sex objects. You’ve come a long way, baby. A long way down.

And this is a lot of what we are dealing with: the demise of Western Culture. With no God, there's no higher authority to answer to, nor needs greater than, our suckling narcissistic ID. So: men turn women into blow-up dolls, and women turn men into money machines. And there’s no better example than Donald Trump and the women he occasionally marries.

Yes, women aren’t the only victims. Men have also suffered from the sexual revolution: they're wanted simply for their power or pocketbook. And that’s gotta be frightening for men like Christopher Hitchens. And judging by his slide down the credibility ladder, he’s scared and angry. So he blames it on the women for not laughing at his jokes. Methinks the wino doth protest too much.

A few humorous asides: Hitchens, bitter atheist that he is, sites the embarrassing human anatomy as proof there is no God. He then describes a scene in hell where demons snicker at our pooping skills. I've heard of people who believe in heaven but not God. But people who believe in Hell but no God? That's a special kind of nihilist.

Hitchens also states that religion is the “official enemy of all humor.” But just who are the leaders of most religions: girls? Who’s at the pulpit most Sundays delivering those humorless three-point, alliterative sermons: Girls? Well, if religion is the enemy of all humor, and men are the figureheads of religion, then men are the enemy of humor. And girls win.