What If We All Walked Like Super Models?

Can you imagine it? Nothing would get done...

We all know it from America's Top Model to the Victoria's Secret runway shows. That peculiar, exaggerated hip-swaying, knee lifting, dead-eye-staring, arm swinging, cross- leg-stepping, goose step that just seems to make women look either irresistibly attractive or just plain ridiculous.

If it weren't accepted so deeply into our culture, I'd swear they were throw-back, catch and release, "What the Hell?" creatures from some 1950's 'B' sci-fi movie.

We already have those freakish Stepford children - overly made up and dressed like pageant divas - like those in Little Miss Sunshine; viva to the odd-balls! Those children looked very disturbed doing the catwalk goose step.

I can't imagine much getting done if everyone walked that way. Personally, I'd be laughing my self into tear-driven dehydration.
My god, what would the octogenarians do? Now that would be the greatest show on earth; grandma doing the diva catwalk... All the way to the hospital.

First of all, if most of us walked that way, our next stop would be at the chiropractor with a slipped disk, turned ankle or concussion from the homies who weren't having that sort of behavior in their neighborhood.

Besides, I seem to remember Naomi Campbell falling during a catwalk fashion show and not one person moved to help her up. Rather, photographers took more pictures while she was on her butt than when she was on her feet.

Another thing, I think you have to do 'the walk' in heels. I've never seen it done in flats.

Okay, so you decide to go off diet and want to make a grocery store runway walk, say down Manhattan's 5th avenue; this sort of behavior would not be tolerated in Brooklyn.

But out the door you go, pausing briefly to vogue-pose at the elevator. Down you go and then out to the apartment complex door where you had batter have a doorman, because super models never open doors by themselves.

Can you see it? There'd be a log jam of super models bumping into each other like older 2-D video game villains waiting to get past an obstacle.

Then down the street, stopping traffic and turning heads while others strut by oblivious to anyone else in the world but you, diva! You, Diva, You! While you're just 'workin' it! Workin' it! Workin' it!

Ever notice super models never acknowledge each other?

It makes you wonder what the world would be like if the world were like their world. I know what you're saying; that sort of behavior would hardly be noticed in some parts of California, but that's another story...

Arriving at the store, which of course has motion sensor controlled doors, the next hurdle would present itself.

Super models never push carts and the only bags they carry couldn't fit more than a few nutrition bars. So, to the checkout you go and, OMG, the minimum wage checkout clerk. Of course you give them the blank stare and never speak to, because super models never talk to anyone.

All I can say is I hope they have an Visa implant or a bar code stamped to their narrow butts so they can just walk out and let the scanner read your purchases because all you're gonna get with a super model's diva attitude is supermarket checkout clerk's head wagging, eyebrow raising, neck craning attitude in return.

Now there's a show down worthy of the O.K. Corral; voguing divas face off with 'I'm not paid enough to take your crap and I'm about to kick your butt checkout clerks.

So, back home for you through streets filled with other goose-woddle-stepping divas, stopping briefly to strike pose after pose at crosswalks.

Of course, the most popular intersections for jay-walking are the ones with the traffic violation cameras because the flash lights up the entire intersection, every super model's best side, and they get their full length and head shot pictures in the mail.

And the way they look could only be described in just three words, darling: Fab-u-lous.

Having folks walking around like that in public would either be the scariest scenario ever or this would be a fun and silly time to be living on Earth.

But there's hope for us commoners. This walk is done mostly in fashion shows. Fashions change. Maybe that will go away with too.

There's one comforting indication that goose step is kinda dumb.
Much wiser, older folks don't do it and that's good enough for me.

Sign of the Apocalypse, Now

The end of the world, brought to you by A-leave...
Need a long sleep? Now you can have it!

Thanks to my dad who influenced me to listen to news radio, read the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Amsterdam News, I've been a broad-spectrum, news junkie since I was a kid.

That was until last week, when I saw a disturbing story.
In full view, the mighty CNN aired a "Dog makes it's way back home after harrowing ordeal" story.

I was horrified.

Not by the story, but by the fact that they devoted air time to it. Can you see a 'dog returns home' on the front page or even the back page of the Wall Street Journal?
Before that moment, I saw CNN as the present day torch of journalism like CBS was back in the days of Walter "Uncle Waltie" Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.

For years, I watched the former powerhouses of hard hitting, uncompromising broadcast news go under. One after another, they were bought out by major corporations like GE or Westinghouse, both who make a good living selling high-performance fighter jet engines and weapons system components; the other network bought by Disney? Good Lord!

And Americans didn't seem to care. To me, it was like living Orwell's 1984, but right here in River City! The ramifications felt like something out of Russia's Politburo where "news" released to the proletariat came from the state. But here in free America, there was no outcry, not even a peep. We trusted GE, Westinghouse, and Disney - who brought us helpful, reliable major appliances and Mickey Mouse - to bring us fair and balanced news. Well, tra-la-la.

CNN's canine transgression wasn't a total surprise; I saw the writing on the wall years ago. It was just a matter of time.
In conversations with my friends and overhearing 'water cooler news,' I noticed an unnerving 'common conciousness.' There was little deviation from a short set of talk about what was going on in the world or what they saw on sensationalized, gossipy TV news. Disturbingly, very few read I overheard read newspapers either. So, I took a few evenings to see what was happening.

And there, plain as day, I watched ABC, NBC and CBS telling one story. Not one story each, but the same story.

For days, I sat before the tube promptly at six and watched the first story on CBS, then remotely controlled my TV to NBC and then ABC in the span of 10 seconds. To my chagrin, they all had the same headline.

Okay, I said to myself, they all read the same newspaper, The NY Times or the NY Daily News or - heaven forbid - The NY Post, but story for story from six to six thirty, all three aired the same stories. This went on every day for the entire week.
For a long time, 60 minutes and PBS were the only broadcast news sources I knew of to have different stories; convincing me they were either otherworldly or not on the grid. For a while, I even turned to the BBC to find out what was happening around the U.S. and the rest of the world because our networks weren't.

For weeks, I lamented about how all 'Big Three' national networks, ABC, NBC and CBS, could air the same "national" news stories at nearly the same time throughout the day - day after day - without little deviation.

"Impossible!" I thought.

Then, slowly, investigative reporting slowed to a deafeningly silent halt. replaced with fluff stories and stories that had "The Illusion of News."

Local news here became local news from Indiana or Minnesota because a truck flipped over and exploded or the pointless coverage of a desperado's futile run from the law in a car pursuit through the streets of Los Angeles. For me, those stories didn't stand up to the, "So what?" question. There are things going on in my backyard that the news isn't covering while they're showing me someone outlaw on the run - like this is still the wild west. Then again, they might wind up in my front (or back) yard.
Even local news in rural areas has farm reports; that's useful local news. But why on Earth am I interested in a car fire in Kalamazoo? Or a frackin' Dingo migration in the outback? There's real news happening here. I just know it.

For a news organization with the size and scope as CNN to report on a dog making it home tells me something is very wrong.

Especially when less and less time is devoted to our sons, daughters and friends who are fighting and dying in a war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the genocide in Darfur, unrest and killings in Tibet, and a mosquito-borne disease spreading across Brazil.
And will someone please tell me why the Queen of England traveling to Nairobi on Safari is news? Or, for that matter, where Prince William parties on the weekends?

Seems like all the networks signed some unholy alliance with an unseen, dark power - no, not the guy who sounds like a diver's air regulator either. Where's the SNL church lady when you want an appropriate question and raised eyebrow?

For a recent example of the networks - including CNN - operating like tools, I look again to the Iraq War. Reports came through the 'big four' that the vaunted 'Surge" in Iraq worked and, for a moment, the networks went quiet about the war. Then the fledgling Iraqi military tried to flex on the Mahdi army and the "insurgents" let fly with bullets and rockets on them and a well aimed mortar barrage on the American held green-zone - with minimized casualty reports. To me, that sounds to me like the Mahdi army's cease fire was bought.
The accuracy of the "Zone" strikes tells me that area is zeroed in. Does anyone remember Saigon? Tet? Too bad the Viet Cong couldn't be bought. Or, maybe they just weren't buying.

But then the headline news stories out of Iraq stopped, again. It suggests that the operations was supposed to go better than it did and the news was supposed to inform concerned Americans - and the world - that the Iraqis can finally take care of them selves, their army has been 'blooded' so to speak. Literally trial by combat. But there were those nagging stories about desertions and soldiers returning to clan affiliations. I guess the British had the same problems with the loyalist colonials.

Few reports are coming out of Iraq on the national army's progress. Why is that? News organizations track things us ordinary folk can't but are concerned about.
Make no mistakes, this is a new war.
And it boggles my mind that a Nation that can fight a war in Europe and the Pacific can't rout what's being called a tribal or insurgent army doesn't make sense to me. Not for a minute.
Anybody notice that, unlike before, this Iraqi war is only Now being called a civil war? Last year, none of the 'pundits' wanted to call the conflict a civil war. They were ready to argue that it wasn't. Where are they now?
Now, five years and 4,000 American lives later, no one is asking, Mr. Bush, "Where are those WMDs?" Is the question really moot? Or is it the near $4 dollar gas prices and the gas companies billions in profits or the housing variable mortgage rate crash that has us preoccupied.

I felt like the end of the bloodless news coup came when Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw "retired." Anyone ask, "Why did they leave at the same time?" And then Peter Jennings, who said he started smoking again after 9/11, died.
Dan Rather made the mistake of openly disliking Bush and would not let go of the President's "questionable" military service. Then, the investigation turned on him when certain damning documents were reportedly faked! My, my. The intrigue. Like so many things - like the Kennedy assasination or whether we really landed men on the moon; the general public will never know.
The creepy thing is that the one possible "free" news medium was - of all things - You-tube.
Now, Rupert Murdock owns it...Hmmm.

So much for the "Free Press."

* * *

"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States and advocate of Liberty.

If there's not a car chase in progress, the TV news networks give us the newspaper headlines from each section. There's so much that just never makes it to the air and thus, American citizens. Does that mean we don't want to now? I sincerely hope not.

By the way, I'm not sure if anyone noticed but this Global War on Terror we're fighting is "World War III."

Get right with God, make your peace with family, visit mama and dad, kiss your spouse, you significant other and your children.

Some call this the time of Armageddon.
Who knows, it might even be televised.
Be a shame if the networks missed that news story.

LAX? MY ASS!

When I stepped off the Boeing 767 after a disorienting 17-hour flight from Rome, entered LAX International, retrieved my things from baggage claim, hailed a cab then headed into Hawthorne, California on my way to my friend's place in "The Valley," I noticed there is nothing LAX about Los Angeles.

First, cabbies and 'regular' drivers move through town and then the Expressways - oops, they're called 'Freeways' here - like computer generated cars in GTA (Grand Theft Auto) - mindlessly sitting in one lane, annoyingly behind or in front of us, or slipping in and out of traffic like there was no tomorrow. And for for some, there wasn't.
I've seen worse accidents than I've seen anywhere, even in Europe where they have no speed limits - flipped cars, burning cars, trucks on their sides, car pile-ups, cars through fences, over dividers, down embankments... You name it.
L.A. LAX? Laid back? I think road rage was invented here. I remember a poster with two guys shooting at each other riding their covered wagons.

As we headed toward Wilshire, I wasn't sure what the overhead signs meant by a 'Sig Alert', but I found out. I wondered why so many cars made an exodus at the previous exit and then, up ahead, traffic went from cruising speed to a dead stop.
As the meter crept upward toward, then past $35 after we had only moved just a few car lengths, I realized why my cabbie didn't exit. "Bastard!" I thought. I drove a yellow cab in NYC, I knew the tricks, but I never thought Id get caught in one. My suspicion was confirmed when he put on dark, Jack Nicholson Ray Bans, intentionally avoiding eye contact with me. He wasn't Cali cool or laid back; he was nervous.
I felt like pulling a NY on him, telling him, "Let me out right here, I'll walk." Or catch a train, or bus, or something! Thing is, in Cali, anywhere you want to go is about an hour by car - that's about two days by wagon train, a day by stage coach or... Okay, just forget about public transportation or going anywhere by foot. Hell, for $35 dollars, I'd have oiled my ass and slid down to Ventura Blvd!
$64 dollars later, and yes, without a tip, I arrived at my friend's place. To my surprise, home-lined sidewalks were deserted. I entered my friend's home and asked why there was no one one the street, he said, "they're all at their second or third jobs."
The look on his face told me he wasn't kidding.
On outing after outing, I looked for the LAX people, the 'laid back' L.A. people and lifestyle popularized by crooners, pop stars and rappers. Alas, I only found agitated gang members, people who ran up to my car when I drove into the wrong Home Depot entrance asking me for work, people with no time or inclination to talk, or worse, people who took time to talk to me long enough to see if I was 'somebody' who had a paying project going in 'the industry.'
After a long, interesting conversation, I couldn't understand why the person - both men and women - exchanged bogus phone numbers with me. My friend told me that was just the L.A. economy driving people's behavior and the fact that I wasn't anybody who was making a film. That "what can you do for me" mentality.
Other people I met who I thought had to be the LAX, drove nice cars or lived in nice homes, but I found they were very worried about their car note and mortgage payment while fearing being jacked - an adapted California miner's term for hitting something with a hammer while digging for their gold.
Okay, so what about those California girls, I thought. Tan and lean, laid back and... Oooo, la la, right?
My friend, forget about dating in California unless your skin is tough as Rhino hide and twice s thick. I've lost count of how many times I've been asked, 'What kind of car do you drive?" or "How much money do you make?" the one girl I did go out with was wearing a weave, colored contacts, Korean nails, had a boob job, face lift, tummy tuck and 'Lipo' but said vehemently, "I want a real man!" Not LAX.
Somehow, Californians can tell themselves from one another and rarely am I mistaken for one.
The ones you really have to worry about are the nouveau slim before the skin tightening procedures. She looked great in her slimming clothing, but once the temperature rises and the clothes went a-flyin' the first sight of hanging excess skin on her arms, abs and legs caused my stomach to twist, followed hard upon by a gag reflex.
Nothing laid back about similar women either - I've met few since the first. Some are eager to get in on the attention and affection they've been missing out on while others are bent on revenge for being ignored or called names - like on one of those "fat to fab" TV talk show episodes.
After some time, I fell into the 'right' crowd who was so preoccupied with getting laid back at their apartments, they were not laid back. But, hanging with them was fun and I thought for sure, through them, I' had to finally meet the 'laid back' people.
We hit the clubs and eventually I had the opportunity to rub elbows with some celebs. We went to their Hollywood Hills secluded homes and kicked back, and I braced for the LAX.
To my dismay, watching their off-screen personas, I quickly noticed they were so publicly "on" that they didn't seem very laid back either. To make it worse, on one of those nights out, it rained in Southern California. Very disheartening.
For the most part, I'd given up on finding the LAX people and with the time I usually spent seeking them, I volunteered in a senior's home. To my surprise, I finally saw them. The only truly 'laid back' people I met in LA were in their golden years, surrounded by large, extended families from young to old who were having a great time in each other's company.
That's the LAX I want.