Viva Las Vegas!

I was watching Larry King seven or eight months ago. I love Larry. I love his little “Heh Heh” laugh. I auto tune in every night and will usually stick around if the topic or guest interests me. I have to tell you I had to step away from the Larry for a while when his bizarre preoccupation with Anna Nicole Smith’s baby daddy nonsense and then her subsequent tragic death got just a scotch too voyeuristic and creepy for me. But I digress…

On this night, the entire hour was devoted to promoting the first anniversary of The Beatles Love Cirque Du Soleil show at The Mirage in Las Vegas. His guests were Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr , the widow of George Harrison, Sir George Martin, the manager of the Beatles since the 1960’s, and Guy Laliberte, the show’s creator.

Now I was always something of a French/Canadian sorta mime snob I’m ashamed to admit.  Freakishly contorted bodies, acrobatics and pantomime were never my cup-o-tea. I even dislike the circus!  But Yoko’s participation and enthusiastic endorsement of the project sealed the deal for me. I am such an admirer of her artwork. Right then and there I began to nurse a covetous desire to see the show.

I began stashing away money and planned the trip for April 12. This was my first trip ever to Las Vegas and the first time I had been on a plane in two years. I had one single minded purpose for travelling to Las Vegas. Casinos and gambling and stuff like that have no appeal for me.  The only thing I wanted to do was see this show.

I also entertained a secondary agenda. I wanted to visit Slots-A-Fun Casino and have one of those $1.50 colossal franks I had seen on Unwrapped or Good Eats– one of those Saturday afternoon shows on The Food Network. The plan was to leave SoCal early Saturday morning, get to the hotel and settle in, do some walking about, see the show and then hit the hay. I’m a morning person not a Vampire. I pretty much like to be home after dark.

Friends, the flight was absolutely fantabulous! April 12^th , at least weatherwise, was one for the books. Sunny, glorious. The Southwest Airline flight departed on time. The sky was clear.  The view of the topography of Nevada was just a joy to behold. The weather that weekend in Las Vegas surprised me in a good way. I expected heat, humidity–heat. Instead it was sunny, bright, 78 degrees, there was a pleasant, sustained breeze. The air was comfortable, dry, perfect! Wow! I fell in love with Vegas!

The only thing I have to say about The Beatles Love show is See It! You don’t even have to purchase tickets in advance like I did. You can walk right up to the box office and get tickets. It’s theater in the round and I was seated right in the front of the stage.  There was about two feet of space between my seat and the stage. Fantastic! 

There was an absolutely delightful couple sitting to my left. They’d travelled from New York state just to see this show, and they were huge Beatles fans and excellent conversationalists. I counted their being there that night a blessing.  I am still grateful for the goodwill they directed toward me.

It was good to be me the evening of April 12, 2008.  Elements of the show appealed to your sense of smell, touch, sight and hearing. I had never experienced anything like it!  The international cast of Cirque Du Soleil performers were uniformly excellent, even the young child performers cast as the four Lads of Liverpool. The production values for the music alone was worth the price of admission!  One really important bit of advice: Spend the $18 bucks for the program.  It’s worth every penny and it’s an invaluable tool that will help you appreciate the performances even more fully.

I had a nice time in Vegas.  The only disappointment I experienced the entire weekend was not getting to have that giant frank.

Mood: OK

It’s not about age or getting old. It’s about being and that with a qualifier: being content, not an unexplainable, grudging acceptance of some mystifying “lot” in life. Maybe there’s something wrong with my brain because I just don’t understand women who approach their thirties and forties and fifties with such fear and loathing and repetitively expressed angst. Growing older is inevitable. Complaining about it is like complaining about the weather– what can you do about it? Growing older is not synonymous with getting old. That’s something else.

I’m fifty-one. I still feel almost exactly as I did when I was nineteen. I still love music, I still love to dance. I still love Lucy and scream “EEE—yaba-daba-dooo!” at quittin’ time on Fridays. Bugs Bunny cartoons (not so much the ’60’s Toons) still make me laugh out loud. I still love Hershey’s Nuggets with Merlot. I still burst pimples and buy tampons.

I still wear A-line, knee length skirts with heels to show off my legs. I look in the mirror and I still think to myself ‘I still look good!’ I still get embarrassed and made to feel humiliated. Mean people still hurt my feelings and great ones are a balm to my soul. I still laugh, I cry.  I experience joy, I suffer shame.   I have good days and then there are the bad, but most of all I am grateful for a mostly good life, good health, a good meal, and a good condition of the heart.

Eighteen years a single mom, I successfully reared a son who does not drink (to excess), smoke, do drugs (not even behind my back; he does not lead a double life), mistreat women, has no children (he’s 24) or has had any trouble with the law. He works hard, has a good job, is well liked and respected by his colleagues and peers. He is a good son and a good man.  He pays his bills and his taxes and is a good citizen in our land. I am enormously proud of him and I make certain he knows it. I won the parent lottery when I got him but our journey wasn’t easy. I don’t feel alienated from him because I’m fifty-one. I don’t feel old or misunderstood or cast off.

I’m still learning and growing, and experimenting and passing and failing and trying new things. I’m blogging. I’m starting new businesses, meeting new people, making new friends. I’m letting go of the things behind and stretching forward toward the things ahead* with conviction, hope, and a trembling optimism.

My experience and rapt attention to the things that have gone on in the world during my lifetime have settled upon me like a baby’s blue blankie. I feel confident, powerful,  intellectually ambidextrous, valuable and secure. I feel good, not old. I am good.  I’m OK!

So Patsy if yer lissnin’*, please… Quit’cher bitchin’! There’s never going to be enough time, or money to do all the things you want or think you want to do. We don’t live forever. We’re not Mork from the planet Ork. Life does not get stuck in reverse. It only keeps advancing forward.

Stop whinning and complaining and comparing yourselves with men. Stop envying them. It’s better, (if, of course, you’re predisposed that way), to enjoy them.  Enjoy yourselves. Your life– your real life is only as short (or as meaningless, or unaccomplished, or empty, or scary, or loveless or failed) as you decide it is.

When you try your best but you don’t succeed

When you get what you want but not what you need

When you feel so tired but you can’t sleep

Stuck in reverse

And the tears come streaming down your face

When you lose something you can’t replace

When you love someone but it goes to waste

Could it be worse

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

From high up above or down below

When you’re too in love to let it go

But if you never try you’ll never know

Just what you’re worth

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Tears stream down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace

Tears stream down your face a lot

Tears stream down your face

I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Tears stream down your face a lot

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you

Chris Martin/Coldplay

*Coal Miner’s Daughter    

Mood: Charitable?

This morning I watched the Today Show on NBC. The big event of the day was the return of Katie Couric to 30 Rock almost “…two years to the day” Matt repeatedly exclaimed, of her announcement that her “head and her gut” were compelling her to make that move to anchor the CBS Evening News.

She was not alone. She was joined by Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson. Why? ABC, CBS and NBC are collaborating on a giant, star studded, televised cancer research fundraiser called Stand Up 2 Cancer.   The commercials started running (or maybe I just started noticing them) yesterday. You know it’s got to be serious and important whenever Susan Sarandon lends her celebrity to anything because she never attaches her celebrity to anything unless it’s serious.  And important.

This morning’s Today Show announcement got me thinking. You know there has been a string of whopping natural disasters lately.    China…

*May 12, China: over 50,000 people die and hundreds of thousands more are injured when a 7.9 magnitude earthquake strikes Sichuan, Gansu, and Yunnan Provinces in western China. Nearly 900 students were trapped when Juyuan Middle School in the Sichuan Province collapsed from the quake. On May 19, 158 rescue workers are killed in landslides caused by rain and floods.

The cyclone in Myanmar…

*May 3, Myanmar: Cyclone Nargis hits the Irrawaddy Delta and the city of Yangon, killing about 78,000 people. Most of the deaths and destruction were caused by a 12-foot high tidal wave that formed during the storm.

Five consecutive months this year of violent tornadoes that seemed to be occurring one right after the other paved a path of death and destruction in Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, Missouri, Georgia, Virginia, and Ohio.

The thought provoking question of the day is:  Where in the world is George Clooney?

Almost immediately after the horrific attacks on 9/11, George Clooney organized the September 21, 2001 America: A Tribute to Heroes telecast. The concert telethon featured dozens of top Hollywood stars, including Clooney, Tom Hanks, Will Smith, Jim Carrey, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Chris Rock, and raised about $129 million, which was given to the United Way for distribution.

George was stirred into action once again when, on January 15, 2005, he prevailed in a war of words with Bill O’Reilly and helped produce Tsunami Aid: A Concert of Hope, a second worldwide benefit held for the tsunami victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake. Once again the stars came out to showcase their spirit of charity, giving back by performing for free and using their celebrity to help those less fortunate.

In response to Hurricane Katrina (which slammed into the U.S. Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005 destroying beachfront towns in Mississippi and Louisiana, displacing a million people, and killing almost 1,800. When levees in New Orleans were breached, 80% of the city was submerged by the flooding) George put his considerable money where his considerable mouth is and wrote a check for $1 million dollars to the United Way Hurricane Katrina Response Fund to help the victims.

This year, Hollywood and all the other collection plate passers are uncharacteristically silent. Not one mega-star telecast, rock-a-thon simulcast or concert.  No angst riddled, impassioned public expressions of sorrow. No arty PSA’s. What’s going on? Dare I say it– Disaster Compassion fatigue?

In all fairness, George of Good Deeds has been pretty busy. In addition to promoting his latest film Leatherheads and splitting with his former waitress girlfriend of one year (saving the world does exact a toll), since January, 2008, George has been travelling in his capacity as a UN Messenger of Peace. 

Hope there won’t be too many more disasters this year. Seems George Clooney and company–   well, they’re just too darn busy.

*Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved

 

Mood: The Agony of Defeat

Stress builds up right in my abdomen, the top part. Inside, it feels like a horrible, twisting, scrunching that’s quite painful after a time. I have to take deep breaths then sit bolt upright in my chair with Denise-N-Debbie pointed toward the heavens while I arch my back to relieve the scrunching, grabbing pressure in my upper abdomen. Walking briskly for at least forty minutes offers some relief, but lately, (well not since May 2 anyway), I haven’t been walking.

My stomach has been tied up in knots like this for at least six months. This happens whenever I am stressed. What brought on this internal tummy turmoil this time?  iTunes.

I love technology and all the stuff.  Yes it’s frustrating sometimes.  Blogging has become almost a full time job for me because:

a. I have to stop and read and learn as I go   and

b There are so many, many, many, many roads down which to travel with so much to say and so little time.

Then there are the Times Square like attractions: the widgets, the downloads, the animations, the ads. As I’m passing through I stop to study other peoples’ blogs. I am amazed. Objects are looping, spinning, spiraling, flashing. Colors are fading in and out. And the noises and music– luring you to Facebook, and MySpace and Friendster– the sensory overload is like trying to read a Dorling-Kindersley Eyewitness picture book .

Some people have multiple blog sites and web pages and still have time for “social networking.” I’m still trying to wrap my brain around del.icio.us. One can really begin to feel like Alice in Wonderland if one wanders aimlessly about in the blogesphere for too long. And with so many people talking, I wonder how many people are really taking the time to listen. Moodz depends on people listening. People who need people are rarely in a mood for disco balls and flashing lights.  It’s like a cyber-arcade–  a fun place to visit but I wouldn’t wanna live there.

Then there are the times when things go wrong. Now I have a low threshold for heat, pain and mean people. My sanctuary is my music. Sometimes you just need to plug in and crank it. Yesterday, I was compelled to download RealPlayer. I have enjoyed it in the past, after all it is one of, if not the pioneer Internet music players, but since I got this notebook about a year ago, I hadn’t bothered to download it. I have an iPhone and as you all well know, you have to have iTunes if you have an iPhone. Apple says so.

Today I double clicked on the iTunes icon on my desktop. Spinning blue circle. Then, poof! Vanish. I clicked on it again. Then again. Then, quite inexplicably, my stomach lining began to turn in on itself.. My world was rocked because I couldn’t open my iTunes!

It took several tries. I had to restart my computer twice, then download iTunes from Apple all over again. About a half hour later, I was whole. I haven’t synched up my phone yet. Film at 11.  Was it because I downloaded RealPlayer?  I wonder what happened?

As my stomach gradually began to relax, (the tightening sensation even now is still subsiding), my thoughts turned to Hillary. My tenacious spirit worked me up into a lather. Hers, too. Why else would she be coming out with all these ghastly verbal blunders? Only she is fighting for– Working class white people? On an otherwise successful trip to Bosnia, only she is fighting to– dodge sniper fire? Now this. Having read and listened to what she said about Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June I get the point she was trying to make and I want to believe she really isn’t secretly hoping Senator Obama gets assassinated. That would be wrong.

Hillary is exhausted. She’s the only woman in our nation’s history who has ever campaigned this hard and for this long.  Even Shirley Chisholm didn’t have to last this long. Maybe that’s why no one is really paying much attention to the downside of this badger-like tenacity. Would anyone in the world community be able to negotiate with her on any level, or will it always have to be her way or the highway because she can hold her breath the longest? Obama’s breezy, breathy, quiet control looks like a cool drink of water next to Hillary’s stinging desert sand. Too bad.

Fierce competition sometimes strengthens character, hell it may even build it. More often than not, though, it simply just reveals it.

Mood: Indifference

Hey Barbara! Here’s a news flash for ya… Interracial couples (specifically Blacks with Whites) have been having relationships, getting married and (Horrors!) producing offspring for hundreds of years now. Ever heard of Halle Berry? She’s over forty and the product of an interracial relationship. What about Tyne Daley and Georg Sanford Brown, or Sammy Davis Jr and May Britt ? Ever heard of them?

How about former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, or Sidney Poitier, or Diahann Carroll and David Frost? Herbie Hancock? They all had interracial relationships that did not necessarily result in their careers being ruined. I could go on and on… James Earl Jones, Mick Jagger, Quincey Jones and Peggy Lipton, Strom Thurmond and whoever that was. His career wasn’t ruined. Well at least not because of that, anyway.

His being “African American” was not the reason you had to hide your relationship, Babs. It wasn’t the racially intolerant climate of the time that would have ruined you. Infidelity is as frowned upon now as it was then, particularly when it involves someone holding public office. Adversity sometimes strengthens character, but more often than not, it reveals it. Can I get an Amen?

The initial fuss about Barbara’s book, (which I have not read but have only heard about owing to her shamelessly promiscuous media appearances to promote it, not to mention Whoopi Goldberg, the former Karen Johnson’s shamelessly obsequious cheerleading about it on The View), provided some relief for the primary symptom of “Tell-All” fatigue: indifference. Alas, it didn’t come to last. It came to pass.

Once upon a time in America, people kept their skeletons securely in closets– oops, I mean private. When indiscretions’ occasionally broke out, it was really a scandal. The stars were not always publically repentant either. In fact, I can’t recall anybody tearfully apologizing on camera for anything before Richard Nixon. When caught, they either got married, split up or went to prison. End of story. Seemed like musicians had problems with drugs and alcohol and actors had problems with sex, drugs and alcohol. When they decided their careers were important to them again, they quit those bad habits like a bad penny and went back to work. Both the industry and the public welcomed them all back with open arms.

No one went on the talk show circuit constantly talking, talking, talking about how strong, and brave, and what a fighter they were for deciding to stop being an addicted person and willfully breaking the law while they were at it. If you had a career busting secret you were keeping out of fear, people didn’t out you. They didn’t write a book or accidently on purpose blab about it during an interview.

As a kid growing up in the Bronx, even I knew Victor Mature, Raymond Burr, and Charles Nelson Reilly were gay. I admit I was surprised about Rock Hudson, but did Richard Chamberlain really believe he was fooling anybody? The press didn’t reveal FDR was a cripple or that JFK was insatiable. Back in those days it was more likely if anything salacious came out about you, you only had yourself to blame.

All that changed when Shelley Winters wrote her tell-all book and went on Merv  and Mike and Johnny and talked, talked, talked about her affair with Tony Franciosa. That was when it seems the finger over the hole in the dyke of personal restraint slipped down. And now everyone and their mother has had a “secret” drug or alcohol problem, or was sexually abused, or had a drug or alcohol problem, or had a mean mom, or had an affair with a married man, (African American not withstanding) or has a drug or alcohol problem and is going into rehab.

Every time I hear about some celebrity writing a book now I just groan.   It’s interesting when these writers are chatting with Larry or Matt, or Regis and Kelly they always say “People need to know that…”  or “People need to understand…”  What people?  Me?  Why?   TMI!! Even without ever reading the book, I’m going to learn more than I care or “need” to. 

So Donny and Marie, please don’t publish a book about how you were sexually abused by your parents. Gwyneth, please don’t publish a book about that time you left your kids alone in a London flat and pimped yourself out for a hit. Oprah, please, please, please don’t tell about that three-way between you, Stedman and Gail. I got a bad case of tell-all fatigue.

May Grey

I love franks. I’m a native New Yorker so we call hot dogs “franks.” I reside in Southern California now. I wish I could find a good frank around here. Last year, Ralph’s had some packaged that were sooo good. They had that snap that you love if you really love franks, none of that oily oozing some companies characterize as “juicy” and that wonderfully agreeable great, but subtle taste and blend of spices.

I don’t like a lot of embellishments on my frank, just a line of mustard, that’s good enough for me. I wrote down the company name of the product, but now I can’t seem to find it nor can I recall it. Can anybody out there help a Sista out?

On the weather tip, today was one for the records. The people here call it “May Grey”. It rained. It’s dark. It’s about 60 degrees. People here call it “freezing”. The weather woman is wearing a fur trimmed hoodie. For some bizarre reason this weather has turned my thoughts toward food.

I love artichokes. Grilled, pickled, marinated, plain– Love, love, love them! I’m not big on candy, snack foods, cakes and sweets. Don’t get me wrong, I like these things as much as the next person I guess, but I prefer vegetables and meat. I don’t gravitate toward fruit much, but I like nuts and dried fruit mixes with nuts, especially cranberries, apricots and raisins.

For some reason, I feel the need to revisit the beet and to rethink my attitude towards it. When I was a child growing up both in the Bronx and Charleston, SC, the beet was always, always, always canned and that horrid, red/purplely liquid would stain everything on the plate it oozed onto. And the taste– I shudder just recalling it.

On occasion I watch Top Chef. Not all the time, but I’ve been watching it some lately because The Daily Show() and The Colbert Report () are in reruns right now. The contestants use beets a lot in their recipes. It looks like a bulb root. I am going to screw my courage to the sticking place and try it again.

This resolve makes me feel good about myself. That in spite of having had perhaps a not so pleasant experience with the beet in the past, having seen it in its natural and rehabilitated state I can feel I will give it a try. I don’t want to be like individuals I have found myself in association with lately. People who see the world as being full of dangerous and threatening “theys” and “thems” they need to avoid, malign or mistreat.

It’s a world view that justifies their keeping these “theys” and “thems” at arms length, to exclude people who are not in their opinion “most Christians” and then turn around and set up chairs in their separatist home-church earnestly feeling God is on their side. Their consciences are seared. They have an entrenched belief in their definition of right. This rigid sense of right makes them murderers of the spirit.

How have you overcome them? Will I?        

Heaven help the child who never had a home
Heaven help the girl who walks the streets alone
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall
Heaven help us all

Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day
Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away
Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl
Heaven help us all

Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all, help us all
Heaven help us all, Lord, hear our call when we fall

Heaven help the boy who won’t reach twenty-one
Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun
Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall
Lord, Heaven help us all

Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, heaven help us all
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we fall, help us all

Now lay me down before I go to sleep
In a troubled world, I pray the Lord to keep
Keep hatred from the mighty and the mighty from the small
Heaven help us all

Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all

                    Stevie Wonder/1970    Heaven Help Us All

© JOBETE MUSIC CO INC

 

Mood: Gratitude

“I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers…”  Blanch DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire,Tennessee Williams, writer.

Friday will mark the third week of my unemployment.  Recall my temp assignment was terminated on May 2. For Mother’s Day, my son FedEx’d me two gift baskets from the Original Wine Country.  I have been living off the breadsticks, crackers and cheese (and the wine) since then.  

Today I received a notice in the mail that my unemployment application has been awarded.  I have to file a paper claim in the mail, but I may not mail it before 05/25.  Today is Tuesday, so it will not be until next Thursday that I will have any cash or anything to eat.  I am hoping and praying my phone and my ISP are not disconnected until then.

This all sounds rather depressing, huh?  Well, today, I had a problem with my ATT wireless setup here. The young man who originally installed my service last month left me his card and encouraged me to call if I had any problems.  His name is Armando.  When he came to install my service, I enjoyed a cerebral and animated conversation with him and was grateful then that this stranger took the time to talk with me. Today was no exception.

In spite of the seemingly unrelenting bleakness of my current circumstance, this young man’s visit today really lifted my spirits.  His supervisor,  Justin,  was equally as professional yet friendly, respectful and courteous.   I am so grateful for the conversation and for their goodwill towards me.

I stayed home today mainly trying to ignore how hungry I am.  Tomorrow, I will go online again and resume my job search.  Please direct all of your goodwill energies toward me and direct success toward my efforts.

This is How it Feels to Not Have a Job.

Mood: Belong

Ahh look at all the lonely people (violins, violins, violins, violins, violins)

Ahh look at all the lonely people…  Eleanor Rigby/Paul McCartney, 1966

I remember back in the ‘80’s, someone coined the phrase “The Me generation.”  Anybody else remember that?  Well, I dunno if all that’s true* when you page through the vast and seemingly endless numbers of people self publishing through blogs and see that many have gone uncommented on.

People, young and old, smart and not so smart, poor and not so poor…  every kind of people busting out all over with thoughts and feelings, baring these to the world (or so they think).  So much for the “me” generation.  All these invisible, unreciprocated, un-listened to, not-responded-to “me’s” out there just hoping to connect.  What do they all want?  I mean, what do they all really want?

“Well, I’ll tell you want I want, what I really, really want…”  Spice Girls

I want to feel belong.  No… not belonging.  Belong.  Belong feels effortless.  It’s like “Ahhh…”  It feels like always being in a state where giving others joy is not only more important than receiving it yourself,  that distinction doesn’t even come to mind.  No quid quo pro. No unrealistic expectations.  Automatic-pilot joy in giving.  The upside of this unconscious, unmanufactured, unselfish, un-self-centered, un-me oriented mindset is reciprocity.  Glorious, emotional needs fulfilling, not too hot, not too cold, but just right– reciprocity. 

I have a sense that people– that tiny percentage of the human population that is not overly preoccupied with me/ego snuffing daily pursuits like oh, not being car bombed, for example or sleeping through the whistle of scud missiles firing in the night, or picking through hard, cracked, barren soil for a seed to eat, or walking bare foot 20 miles to fetch a pail of water, or battling AIDS, or homelessness, or joblessness– who have it all just about covered in the life sustanance department– just want to feel belong.  Not belonging.  I said Belong. 

Like going to work every day.  This is the place I come to every day.  Belong.  Like managing the home and caring for minor children.  Belong.  Like not having to perform because these strangers that you’re lunching with may be potential new friends.  Belong. Like crying out “Help!  I need somebody.  Help!  Not just anybody.  Help!  You know I need someone.  Help!”**  And it arrives.  Belong.

People are blogging.  People are writing more than ever before.  But are people reading? 

“Is there somebody out there?  Is there someone who hears my…?”     Dear God/Midge Ure

This is how it feels not to have a job…

*I Got You, Babe/Sonny and Cher, 1965

**Help!/The Beatles, 1965

Mood: Indigotic

About an hour ago I was forced to reflect on the experience at my temp assignment.  There was an occasion when I transported some people there in my car.  I like to listen to NPR (the San Diego station pales in comparison to the Seattle and Tacoma stations, but I digress…) 

When I started the car, someone was doing a parody of some rock tune.  I cannot recall what.  Later that day, the “Accounting Manager” (present in the vehicle) asked me if I’d ever heard of Mike Savage.  I had not and I told him as much, but apparently because I listen to public radio he imagined I would enjoy the ‘hilarious” on-air musings of Mike Savage.  He enthusiastically recommended that I tune in.  “He’s funny.  I think you’ll like him”  he said.

About an hour ago, I began to get ready to approach my blog. I stumbled across this website http://thinkprogress.org and read this:

Savage Mocks Robert Byrd’s Tears: We Should ‘Send In Orderlies In White Coats’ To ‘Remove The Old Man’»

Yesterday, upon news of Sen. Ted Kennedy’s (D-MA) diagnosis of a malignant brain tumor, “a moment of anguished silence” brushed over Washington, Massachussetts, and the entire country. Many senators took to the floor to express their sadness at the news, including Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). Byrd, the longest-serving senator, broke down in tears as he paid tribute to Kennedy, the second-longest-serving senator. (Watch his tribute here).

Apparently, king of hate radio Michael Savage found the whole situation funny. On his radio show yesterday, after mocking Kennedy by playing a bizarre montage featuring Arnold Schwarzennegger from “Kindergarten Cop” and a song about liberal facism by the band the Dead Kennedys, Savage ripped into Byrd’s heartfelt tribute as well:

SAVAGE: And if you think that we have a bunch of senile old coots running Congress, what I’m about to play for you will confirm your worst fears. […]

I’m asking you, would a sane nation permit a senile senator to hold his seat? You gently send in orderlies in white coats, and they gently remove the old man, and they put him in a chair — strap him in — in the Senate retirement home, and wheel him over next to a curtain facing a nice outdoor window, and three times a day they feed it.

If “sputtering invective” against Holocaust survivors, Latinos, African Americans, U.S. soldiers, immigrants, and Muslims — to name a few — isn’t enough to keep Savage off the air, perhaps slurring two respected public figures will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Since May 2, I have been hearing Bruce Hornsby’s The Way It Is over and over in my head.   I wonder why “The Accounting Manager” who is Mexican, would think I would appreciate ““sputtering invective” against Holocaust survivors, Latinos, African Americans, U.S. soldiers, immigrants, and Muslims — to name a few.”  I wonder how he could equate the content of NPR with the  ““sputtering invective” against Holocaust survivors, Latinos, African Americans, U.S. soldiers, immigrants, and Muslims” attributed to Mike Savage.

For five of the six months I endured in that assignment, I felt I was the object of derision and racism.  I came to this conclusion when The Controller began almost daily to actually scream about in the office her feeling that the employment agency was sending people whose backgrounds they had not checked.  This in spite of the fact that when I arrived, there were already two temps there who were clients of the same agency I was, one of whom “The Company” was prepared after six months to offer the position in payroll. 

This young lady had repeatedly and often confessed to me she had no previous payroll experience, felt frustrated and incompetent in her role in payroll and intensely disliked working with the HR Manager.  She was frequently absent.   She also shared with me that her real ambition in life was to join the military. She subsequently quit without notice and by phoning in that very day.  The other temp was asked to leave.  The Controller did not like her.

Every other person before me who was assigned to work that desk was immediately assigned a personalized e-mail address with the company name as the suffix.  I was not.  Systems logins assigned to me were “Not again,” and “so far so good.”  The Controller thought this was funny.  The Controller characterized the position to me as “low level.”  I immediately visited the HR Manager in her office and was told the position was not “low level” but essential. 

A data entry function of the desk was reassigned to the “Staff Accountant,” yet on Friday, May 2, I was told that was one of the reasons I was not going to be offered the position, this after repeated verbal and e-mail reassurances by “The Accounting Manager” that I was doing a terrific job and that I was being considered for the position.  He even said directly to me “You have the job.”

In March, The Controller’s step-daughter was hired as a part-time temp.  She herself was a client of the same employment agency as I.  Although I performed the same tasks as she was when I initially came aboard, The Company compensated The Controller’s step-daughter by paying her $3.00 more an hour than me.  She left after several weeks.

Now, after discovering this article about Mike Savage, I am more convinced than ever that I was discriminated against and denied employment based on my race.

I have decided to pursue this with the local EEOC here.  I’m sorry.  Only Dave Chappelle can make the experience of racism funny.