A Mickey Mouse Education

In the Style section of the Saturday, June 21, 2008 edition of The Washington Post, the lead story, written by Laura Yao, is a fluff piece on 15-year-old Demi Lovato, star of Disney's latest made-for-kiddivision pabulum, Camp Rock. For those of you clueless as to what Camp Rock is, it's the place where you spend your summers during High School Musical, unless you need to go to Crooner Summer School, or your Dad makes you work all summer at his Hip Hop Hardware Store.

Lovato is another in a long line of Village of the Damned-like child stars churned out by the Disney Pop-Grinder, and when features like Yao's mention previous Disney successes such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, et al., they always neglect to mention those near-misses who weren't so lucky (or determined) to make it, and whose forfeited souls now heat the outdoor pool at the Grand Floridian.

The article itself is forgettable, but I'll let Yao slide because the assignment seems to have played like one of those painted carnival cut-outs, where the bodies of cartoon mermaids or monkeys in suits on roller skates are missing their heads, and people stick their faces in the holes where the heads should be; only here, the body is that of a generic pop tart, and the interchangeable head is Lovato's. Take a picture, kid. It'll last longer.

While Camp Rock is nothing more than cheese puffs for children's minds, aspiring hope-to-be's might glean a few things from the Post piece; an education on how they should NOT behave if they find themselves on the brink of stardom (and if not stardom, at least on the brink of being voted Most Popular). There are some hidden lessons there, too. From the the article:

Lovato's apparent maturity is born of experience in learning how to deal, as the kids say. In middle school, Lovato says, "I went through a really hard time at school with girls bullying me. I blamed it on myself at the time, but looking back I guess it was out of jealousy." One day, upset and frustrated, she called her mother and said, "I want home school." The next week, they were out buying home-schooling materials.

WRONG LESSON 1 - HOW TO DEAL (as the kids say): At the first sign of trouble, immediately phone the one-woman SEAL team known only by a palindromic codename - MOM - to extract your blossoming diva butt from the harrowing crisis of being assaulted by Middle Eastern ter...I mean, middle school bullies. THE HIDDEN LESSON: Withdrawing from middle school before completing the education can be seen as defeatist, and might embolden the bullies.

WRONG LESSON 2 - HOW TO HANDLE YOUR PEOPLE: First, ignore all manners. Manners don't put faces on lunch boxes. Second, ignore the fact that the person you are bossing around is the person who made you...not your career, but your actual physical self. Third, keep it simple. All you need is a noun, a verb, and a subject (namely, something you covet). "I want home school." "I want car." "I want boy." "I want girl." "I want boob job." THE HIDDEN LESSON: Just because you suspect that when mom looks at your baby pictures she only sees a little naked dollar sign on a bearskin rug, doesn't mean she actually sees that, thus giving you the right to treat her like some lowly groupie...although she probably does see the dollar sign.

Again from the article, which quotes Lovato on the subject of being a role model to girls (barely) younger than she is:

"The way I want to be a role model is not by not making mistakes."

That is not a typo. The irony here, of course, is that she makes an egregious grammatical mistake in stating that she doesn't not want to not be the one not being a role model by not not making mistakes...or not.

WRONG LESSON 3 - CONSIDER WHAT YOU SAY: It's no secret that you have the shelf life of a loaf of bread, and every career move you make is in the interest of grabbing as quick a buck as possible, before the next 15-year-old soon-to-fade kicks you to the curb and you find yourself taking Vicodin with shots of tequila...and you're 19. What you don't want is to be perceived as having the intelligence of a loaf of bread. THE HIDDEN LESSON: Your lips are like your legs: consider the consequences of opening either too recklessly.

Of course, I wish nothing but the best for...what was that girl's name again?

I wonder...

I wonder...why do men wear camouflage?

I'm not talking about soldiers or hunters; I get that. I mean guys like the one I saw in aisle 12 at the supermarket the other day, in his camouflage t-shirt. Where I live, camouflage-as-fashion-statement is so popular, I would dare say that camouflage is the new black. However, I wanted to go up to the guy and say, "You know I can still see you, yes?"


I wonder...how do the dead feel about being immortalized with stickers?

Joining the automotive pop-cultural ranks of bumper stickers and "Baby on Board" signs are decal memorials to the deceased. Most of these stickers begin with "In Loving Memory of..." and include at least a name, and dates of birth and death. When I see these tombstone-like messages on rear windows, I want to flag down the driver and ask him if he had hit the decedent with that car, or if the departed were perhaps interred somewhere in the vehicle. I begrudge no one their right to grieve, but placing a memorial next to a sticker of that little brat peeing on Tony Stewart's #20 kind of cheapens the sentiment.


I wonder...have Bluetooth users looked in the mirror lately?

For those of you over the age of 30, wearing a Bluetooth device in your ear makes you look like you're on your way to the STAR TREK convention, which is NOT A COMPLIMENT. And for you professionals out there in your pinstripes or your Jimmy Choos, accessorizing your power-appearance with a glowing gizmo hanging from the side of your head makes you look no less ridiculous than if you showed up to the board meeting in a tube top.


I wonder...where are the losing children?

At the youngest levels of youth athletics, all children get participant trophies and all games end in ties. Sure, we want to shelter our kids from the ills of the world, but as much as life is about how you play the game, it is also about winning or losing - in all areas of life. Not every kid will go to the prom with head cheerleader, not every job promotion will be given, and not every home pregnancy test will show...well, insert YOUR desired result here. The sooner kids learn this, the better prepared they will be to handle life's setbacks. So I ask you, where are the losing children? I went to school with losers. Surely they have bred.


I wonder...does that make you look fat?

Yeah, it does. Sorry.

Putting the MANSHIP back into SPORTS

My wife is a runner, and to paraphrase a great friend of mine, she does so without even being chased.

To be honest, I don’t understand this desire to repeatedly put one foot in front of the other, and at such a pace and for such a distance, that pain becomes not merely a possibility, but an expectation. And, not only do I not understand it, I don’t pretend to understand it. I know that when my wife comes home from a run, and she speaks of blisters on her feet or twinges in her hip, I don’t give her a look that says, “I feel your pain, Baby.” I give her a look that says, “If God had REALLY wanted us to put our bodies through such paces for the sole purpose of getting from one place to another, He wouldn’t have invented cars. Duh.”

However, while I might not understand it or even pretend to understand it, I accept it and respect it as a key part of my wife’s existence. There is something about running that gives her a glorious feeling that nothing else can replicate, regardless of how many speeds it has or how many batteries you put in it, and that’s a mystery that will forever go unsolved for me, along with things like the Kennedy assassination and yogurt in a tube.

Recently, my wife participated in the 10-mile portion of the Christiana Care Delaware Marathon / Relay / 10-Mile. The notion of a relay interested me, because it consisted of multiple runners on one team combining each individual leg for one marathon’s distance. I was almost inspired to take up running, but it turns out your team has only four runners somehow dividing the marathon’s distance. They don’t let you run a 26.2-mile relay race with a team of 262 people running .10 miles each.

So much for my running career.

When my wife has run races in the past, I have stayed home with the kiddies, but the kiddies are now of an age where one can baby-sit the other (as long as I hide the duct tape first). With that, and for the first time, I accompanied Baby to her race.

Like a good runner, she brought with her a sack of running-related stuff. I have no idea what most of that stuff was, just as I have no idea what most woodworking tools look like or what the inside of a human chest cavity contains (other than what I’ve seen on CSI: Woodshop). What I do know, though, is how to be a good supporter, and a good supporter brings four things of his own: sunscreen, an I-Pod, a chair, and the newspaper.

After Baby began her trek along what I can only describe as one humongous loop, I found a spot near the finish line, parked my chair, slathered enough lotion to form a thick SPF cocoon around my fair-skinned exoskeleton, cranked the tunes, and perused the news of the day. As time passed and more people gathered near the finish line, I took to my feet so I wouldn’t look like a complete lump, although the guy across the street jamming breakfast sandwiches down his throat pretty much guaranteed me no better than first runner-up in the Mr. You-Really-Don’t-Belong-Here-Do-You 2008 Pageant.

Then, an odd thing happened. A runner crossed the finish line, headed for the table of complimentary replenishment foodstuffs, and quickly found his way next to me so that he could cheer on the runners who would eventually follow him.

Huh?!?!?!

As runner after runner passed, this other competitor, not really sweating as much as gushing from his pores, rooted for complete strangers whom he had just beaten, as well as runners from the other two races! And then more runners followed suit, cheering on those who followed after them. And this was no feigned enthusiasm. This was no congratulation exhibited by forcedly polite golf-claps. This was palm-reddening, voice-hoarsening enthusiasm for runners of all stripes, from runners of all stripes.

I was so stunned I had to sit down. That and I was getting winded…you know, from standing there and stuff.

Where was the gloating? Where was the thrill of (your own) victory? Where was the agony of (the other guy’s) defeat? No jerseys were popped! No fingers were wagged! Who stole the egocentric humanity I knew and loved and what sort of alien symbiotic communal life form did they replace it with?

According to my wife, my X-Files-esque accusations were both cute and creepy at the same time. She went on to explain that this camaraderie is routine in the running community. It seems that runners have a much better sense of, and respect for, the effort it takes to finish a race.

Runners are bonded by the shared experience of not only the physical toll that repeated ground-pounding dishes out to the body, but also the mental toll of knowing, one stride after the starter’s pistol fires, you have 26.2 miles (minus three feet) to go, and there is no whistle to allow substitutions, no middle reliever to warm up in the pen, and no pit crew to change tires. Only YOU can finish YOUR race…alone. And when you finish that race, you take satisfaction in knowing, and your running brethren take satisfaction in knowing, that what you have done truly is an accomplishment worth cheering.

Eating breakfast sandwiches? Not so much.

So I applaud you, runners; not only for your physical and mental toughness, but for your deep understanding of sportsmanship; that while individual statistics are important, at the end of the day, it’s not about winning or losing, it’s about the achievement of the act.
Now, can someone please pass the aloe? I missed the back of my neck and the sunburn really hurts.

Beam Me Up, Jesus

It’s been a few weeks since Pope Benedict XVI celebrated mass at New York’s Yankee Stadium. Oh, for want of a local church with luxury boxes, a JumboTron, and a dude who brings hotdogs to your seat.

This pope’s inaugural stateside visit was an exciting time for devout Catholics in the United States, and it was just as exciting for a Lapsed Catholic like me, because it gave me a chance to again embrace my faith…and so soon after Easter! As a bonus, what with church carnival season just around the corner, Christmas seems so much closer now.

But ever since Shepherd One – a moniker for the pontiff’s plane (and perhaps the title of an upcoming Harrison Ford movie) – went wheels-up and headed home to Vatican City, I’ve been left wondering about what we Lapsed Catholics can do to maintain the high interest level that the pope’s visit inspired (or at least attempted to encourage). The answer finally came to me in the 21st century equivalent of the burning bush: the Associated Press.

In a story filed this week by the AP’s Ariel David, “Believing that the universe may contain alien life does not contradict a faith in God, the Vatican’s chief astronomer said in an interview published Tuesday.” The AP piece later states, “In the interview by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, [Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory Rev. Jose Gabriel] Funes said that such a notion ‘doesn't contradict our faith’ because aliens would still be God’s creatures. Ruling out the existence of aliens would be like ‘putting limits’ on God’s creative freedom, he said.”

Don’t misunderstand me. It isn’t the notion that the Catholic Church has validated the possibility that life on other planets exists that has my interest piqued, nor is it the opportunity to sit in an otherwise brutally boring staff meeting, look my boss dead in the eye, and say, “Hey! The Catholic Church says that God might have created life on Uranus.”

I’m excited by the fact that there is such a place as the Vatican Observatory! And they have a chief astronomer! I thought the Chief Catholic Astronomer was God! Who knew? And before today, if someone had asked me about the church’s position on outer space, I would have said, “Catholic? Outer space? Yes, we call that Heaven.”

As of today, I have found my faith to be reinvigorated by the potential for unique employment opportunities. Not only is there a Vatican Observatory, there is someone out there who makes OFFICIAL papal merchandise (as opposed to that cheapy knock-off junk you might find at your local farmer’s market).

Head on over to www.popevisit2008.com and you, too, can purchase Vatican-licensed merchandise to help you keep the faith! My faves? I like the $4.50 dog tags, because there is something so very crusade-y about combining God and military-style IDs. I also like the $18.50 t-shirt emblazoned with “Property of Benedict XVI” which, with its blatantly athletic overtones, makes me wonder if they ever considered emblazoning merchandise with the slogan “Just Pew It.”

See! I’m a natural! Vatican Human Resources, here I come!