Losing for Dummies

Better odds of winning by getting accepted at Hahvahd, getting your MBA and making a fortune selling shit ass derivatives based on sub-prime mortgages of folks who buy this book.

Man, the clothes of the late 60s were… um… colorful.

I’ll laugh if I ever see Don in a Nehru jacket and muttonchop sideburns.

@ManchuCandidate: The clothes of the 60s were fucking AWSOME.

Harry and Don Go To White Castle?

@Benedick:
I’ve seen my dad’s wardrobe from that time period… not a fan. My dad was not happy I giggled at his wide colorful ties.

To be fair, I suspect if I have kids they will laugh at my supposedly baggy (I was fat) rugby pants and thin leather ties that I wore in the 80s.

@Benedick: Agreed. My pops dressed just fine in the 60s, but the 70s totally overwhelmed him. I think it was the trauma of having to let his hair and sideburns grow out after a decade of maintaining a perfectly groomed flattop.

@ManchuCandidate: Don’t even mention the 80s. Women in shoulder pads = ’nuff said.

You wait, little girl
on an empty stage
for love to turn the light on

Your life, little girl
is an empty page
that men will want to write on

To write on…

Yeah, I know all the words. So what? And why did they close out with it?

Pssh. I love my clothes from the ’70s and ’80s. The ’90s, especially those weird jean shorts with the waist that kinda folded down worn with strange belts? Er. But then Guess started making shorts, so, yay! Babydoll dresses…maybe the ’90s weren’t so bad, either.

@Lost in the Negative Space: Betty is that girl, twenty years later.

@ManchuCandidate: @Nabisco: As the grown up here may I conduct you to my wardrobe?

Years back, before Joe Papp died, I was in a musical at the Public which was set in London’s swinging 60s. They unleashed their vast wardrobe on us, stored from years of productions, vinyl belts, hip-huggers, assless chaps. Sexy is sexy whenever it happens. When you’re stripped to a see-through shirt and pencil pants you are going to look hot.

The wardrobe was sold to pay bills.

Hey Nojo, I’ve been having trouble connecting to the Stinque server from here in Beijing. Could you please put the hamsters on double rations for a couple of days?

@Dodgerblue: Images of Nojo shouting didi MAO behind the hamster wheel.

@Benedick: Dude, I had hip huggers. In the 70s. And polyester shirts. And Not Even Hush Puppies shoes with one inch plastic platforms. Truly horrid stuff – I couldn’t wait to discover the joys of overalls and flannel shirts.

@nojo: Ah. She needs someone older and wiser, telling her what to dooo-oooo? Pssh.

I love the scene though. I wanted the dress, and I wanted to run on those benches et grande jeté. I didn’t want a Nazi boyfriend though.

ADD: I almost crapped when her doctor called her middle aged.

@Benedick: I wear hip huggers now. Boot-cut jeans are simply modified bell bottoms. All I’m lacking is suede. And pink corduroy pants with tiny flowers. Maybe they were purple. I was about three years old, so it was cool. We saved my suede fringe vest. My son also wore it. I think it finally fell apart or was buried.

@nojo: Okay. I get it now. What year are we in ? Somewhere in the early to mid ’60s, or are we in the ’70s? My mother graduated HS in ’61 and married my father in ’63(?). She dropped out of college to do so. My dad was a kind of Don in training, not on the same scale (obviously) but quite dapper. I was born in ’66, which I think makes me around the age of Draper Child Without Speaking Part or maybe Anorexic Little Girl.

Mom was raised to be like Betty, or at least she was treated like Betty, but she knew that she could create a life of her choosing. Instead she went the Betty route and ended up a single mother at the age of 28. <- Not exactly how things were supposed to work out.

She later had chances to go to college (free! worked at an *ahem* Lesser Ivy), and she occasionally beats herself up about not taking advantage of those opportunities. I tell her it's not too late. She tells me she's almost 70. I tell her it's not too late.

I don't know. It was a weird time.

I spent yesterday playing tour guide at one of the Ancestral Homelands — the lesser Ivy. A kid from the Central Valley flew in because he's attending a grad school open house today. It was interesting to remember what it was like to grow up there, to see how it has changed architecturally (not for the better), and part of me was wistful. I was wistful despite having no one to play with outside of school when I was there. It was incredibly lonely, but the campus was a playground.

I pretended I was my friend's mother so we could get into the school building, talk to current students, go into studios and stuff, and all his embarrassment could be blamed on me. And then we'd walk around and I'd say, "Yeah — I used to ride my bike in circles over there to annoy the students. There's a hidden duck pond over there. I used to try to climb that piece of crap sculpture. I used to love this store — I bought goldfish here. There was a tent city there…."

I'm middle aged.

@Nabisco: I couldn’t wait to discover the joys of overalls and flannel shirts. You’re a lesbian? I did not know that.

@Lost in the Negative Space: Darling, we’re all middle-aged.

Unintentional comedy was hearing Betty described as a great soul.

I sometimes wonder if Mad Men is sending a message to those pretty girls with awful personalities… this could happen to you!

But what about the bitching about “Romney” in last night’s episode?

@SanFranLefty:
Hehe. I thought it was Romney, but I thought I heard it wrong.

I read recently that Mittens dad was considered a serious contendah for the GOPers till Nixon came along.

@ManchuCandidate: Yep, lil’ Tagg (is he the ghey one or the Ponzi scheme one?) got on the Twitterz this morning to denounce the liberal media making fun of his grandpa.

Betty’s hubby Henry was on the phone and called George Romney “a clown” for those of you who missed it.

@SanFranLefty:
Like father, like son, like grandson. If special undies fit…

@SanFranLefty: Michigan Governor George Romney, fellow Republican to NYC mayor John Lindsay, whom Mr. Betty works for.

Lindsay won his election in 1965, which I think is the year we’re in. So Mr. Betty is saying that George wouldn’t be much help in the campaign. Why George is a “clown”, I’m not certain — he didn’t say he was “brainwashed” by the Vietnam generals until 1967.

@nojo: 1966 (apparently the Stones concert, among other things, helps place it), and Romney called out Goldwater in 1964, so his heresy was already well known.

@mellbell: You are correct. And if it’s 1966, expect Batman references soon.

Well, my 1966. “Bewitched” followed it on Wednesday nights.

@Manchu: Your comment about pretty girls reminds me of two things:

There was an episode of House where a model found out that she was genetically male (I think that’s what happened, or maybe she was boning her dad or both). Anyway, she was talking to Cameron (sp?), and she said something to the effect that if you’re pretty and you’re only told you’re pretty as you’re growing up, when you lose your looks, you have no self worth, no worth. When you’re someone like Cameron who is pretty but was raised with an emphasis placed on her intelligence, your self/worth doesn’t lie in looks alone.

The other thing I thought about was a study I read where they claim that attractive children tend to do better in school because they are given more chances to arrive at the right answer (publicly) in class. Boosts self-esteem. Boys get more second chances than girls regardless of attractiveness. From personal experience, I think there’s something to it. The kids aren’t smarter, but they don’t give up and shut down as some other kids do. The created introverts (especially if this behavior is reinforced at home) tend to be “late bloomers” if they bloom. The extroverts over estimate their intelligence (weren’t we talking about this at one point?), but many are able to fake it ’till they make it.

I need more benzos.

Okay. Benzos=sleeping on the bus. No one wants to be rolled.

I think the worth of a person, and I am struggling to find another word, because worth=monetary value or some sort of value judgement, and that’s not what I mean, but I think that’s what we do. We see ourselves and each other as commodities, maybe because we’re treated as such. I don’t know.

If there is a non-monetary type of value I can comfortably accept, it doesn’t lie in looks, money, kinship, intelligence, heritage, talent, athleticism. It has nothing to do with labels, inheritance or conditioning. We’re just saddled with and hamstrung by that crap, and it stunts us.

Value lies in being. Animal, vegetable, mineral, sentient or unaware, value exists not through something’s or someone’s usefulness but simply through existence. Even ephemeral things like ideas and dreams have value.

Value lies in plants as they bend to follow the sun or in rocks that are polished as they tumble down miles of river. It lies in the river as well.

Damn, these are some good drugs, and typing on the bus is kinda tough.

@Lost in the Negative Space:
In my family, it was an emphasis on intelligence.

Met too many folks who were “ain’t pretty, but they look that way.”

@ManchuCandidate: Were you ever “smart enough”? I’ve be trying to ignore what a friend told me when I was 19: I’ll never be enough in anyone’s eyes, so I’ll never be enough in mine. Time to change the measure used or just stop measuring.

@Lost in the Negative Space:
No. I was never smart enough for my parents. My dad was to academics as hockey dads are to sports. I ended up losing a lot on the socializing side (ie: talking to the fairer sex) which I’m only now starting to catch up.

They wanted me to become a prof of engineering (my dad wanted to be an Einstein but was denied because his brothers wanted him to have a “real” career.) I hated the bureaucratic side of academia and rebelled (to my own detriment.)

I don’t resent the pushing as much as I did 10 years ago… they did have a point.

@ManchuCandidate: But the pushing eventually stopped, and it doesn’t resonate today? That’s my problem. The pushing continues and there’s no damping.

On my way to an interview: “You look nice. Are you wearing that necklace?”

[Yes, I am dressed.]

“Don’t intimidate people with your intelligence. Be sweet.”

[Uh…]

Shit like that. I still get it.

@Lost in the Negative Space:
It still resonates but not like it did before.

What sort of made being smart easier for me (and protected me) was that whole “Asians are smart” meme. In white bread rural Canada it was almost expected that I blow people away with my intelligence. The only time this really caused me grief was when I proved I was human and flopped. Of course it did not help that I also had the highest IQ in the county (big fish in small pond) and my parents didn’t tell me because they thought it would make me an insufferable egotistic asshole. Instead, it turned two of my best “friends” into jealous petty dicks and I couldn’t understand why until 10 years (!) later.

I know you grew up in a different place than I did so I can’t really say. The only thing I can tell is that you’re smart. Own it. Don’t be afraid to be who you are.

@Lost in the Negative Space: How did the interview go?

I’m with ManchuCandidate, don’t be afraid of being smart.

@SanFranLefty: Didn’t get that job, but met some interesting people, so we’ll see. I think they liked my necklace. ;-)

Tomorrow I apply to be the person in court who says, “All rise.” I think that’s all I do. I hope that’s all I do. I want to hear the municipal court arguments and see if I can keep my mouth shut.

@SanFranLefty: ACK! I just read the job description (don’t ask), and I might need firearms training? This sounds like a bailiff gig. I thought so when my cousin told me about it. I’m not taking a bullet for a judge.

Am I allowed to skip the swear part and just ask people to affirm that they’ll tell the truth on a stack of Pringles?

Okay. Time to fill out the application…