President Bush should look at the events unfolding at San Francisco's City Hall and take a page out of Gavin Newsom's book.
It's a fascinating, heart-warming sight.
Hundreds of couples wait in a line circling the block of San Francisco's City Hall. They are talking excitedly, holding each other tightly, kissing passionately, waiting for their chance to declare their love to each other in the oldest, most sacred ceremony in our civilization.
Some have been together for 20, 30, 40, even 50 years. They are committed to each other, have been there for each other through the good times and the bad, for richer or poorer, through sickness and in health. And now, after all these years of commitment, they finally get their chance to stand up and say, "'Til death do us part."
The laughter, the tears, the excitement, the screams of joy. It's absolutely heart-wrenching. There is no doubt that this is the happiest day of their life. Their hearts are filled because they truly understand what a privilege and an honor marriage really is.
This, President Bush, is the sanctity of marriage.
The scene outside San Francisco's City Hall truly captures the real meaning of marriage: the love between two people that cannot be broken down by sickness, poverty, discrimination, politics or even death.
So why is George W. trying so hard to define marriage to an age old stereotype that is obviously past its prime?
Social Justification
Bush has said: "After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence
and
millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are
presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization."
As of 200 years ago, more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience told us that slavery was a fundamental institution of civilization. And, as is the case for gay marriages today, it was believed that the majority of U.S. citizens agreed that slavery was good and fair. There was a war fought because so many people believed in slavery. Does that make it any less wrong? The majority's answer is not always the right one.
The conservative right wingers against gay marriages try to make the case that homosexuality is against moral code and against God's will. Basically, the Bible says it's wrong. The Bible also displays women as inferior beings and claims that they should not be declared the same rights as men. The more conservative churches still don't allow women to serve as priests or ministers. Yet, in our society, we have embraced women as equals and have learned that they are not only equal, but surpass men in some instances.
And the one question that none of these conservatives have been able to answer is, if God really "hates fags," then why are there gays in the first place? Most conservatives will answer, "Because they choose to be gay." But the majority of gays in America have expressed that being gay is not a choice, rather a reality that they have to deal with. This is something that they are born into. They don't get a choice. Because given a choice of a life of happiness and acceptance, and a life of pain and discrimination, a rational human being will never choose the life of pain.
Our former views of slavery, women and religion show that humanity as a whole has been wrong in the past. We grow, change and learn from our mistakes.
Hopefully, a ban on gay marriage won't be a mistake that we will have to learn from.
Benefits of Gay Marriage
The face of marriage has not exactly been clean for the past couple
decades.
A century ago, 'til death do us part was meant literally. Now, the
divorce
rate has shot up and is well over the half-way mark. People are getting
married for all the wrong reasons: money, power, lust, sex, convenience.
It
is rarely about love anymore.
This is perfect reason for President Bush to allow gay marriages. The majority of those couples in San Francisco have been in committed relationships for years. They are already aware of the bonds of love. And some of them are already symbolically married. What better way to cut the divorce rate and showcase the true meaning of marriage than to allow thousands of committed couples to marry?
And, in this time of economic crisis, marriage licenses can also be a money-maker. In the two weeks that San Francisco has been issuing marriage licenses to almost 3,000 gay couples, they have accumulated almost $250,000 in marriage license fees. Imagine how much each city could make in a year just on issuing marriage licenses to gay couples?
Specifically, for President Bush, accepting gay marriages could also be a big political gain. Look at Gavin Newsom. Before taking office, Newsom was only known as a sneaky, high-class, business-type playboy. His conservative views did not mesh with liberal San Francisco and his biggest political promise was taking care of the homeless problem in the city. But now, he has the entire city rallied around him, supporting his every move.
With the growing number of the gay population, soon every person in the country will at least know or be close to one homosexual. If even half the population has a deep personal connection with one gay person, well, those numbers don't bode well for any anti-gay politicians.
Times are a-changing
Bush will "go down in history as the first president to try to write
discrimination back into the Constitution. We have amended the
Constitution
only 17 times. ... [It] has often been amended to expand and protect
people's rights, never to take away or restrict their rights," Sen. Ted
Kennedy said.
We live in a liberal society of ever changing values. Stereotypes that we held to years ago have been proven discriminatory and wrong, and we have accepted our new values of life. If President Bush goes through with this ban on gay marriage, he will be up against a fury of liberal Americans who have embraced all races, cultures and ways of life. The American people as a whole have shown that they are accepting of the gay culture, not only through their outreach during times of hardship, such as the death of Matthew Shepard, but also in embracing the gay culture into everyday popular culture. It's a reality of today's world, and those who are not accepting of it will soon be the minority.
The perfect example of this is the straight scene outside of San Francisco's City Hall. Aside from a few protestors in the corner, signs of support are shown everywhere. People passing by stop and give hi-fives or hugs to those in line. Passers-by cheer and shout their congratulations. Cars passing by honk their support to the couples in line. Amid all the honks and cheers of support, two women emerge through the doors of City Hall. Wedding veils flowing behind them, they run down the stairs, turn to the crowd, hold up their marriage license and kiss to seal their pact as a married couple.
The perfect sign of the sanctity of marriage.
It took Congress a week to hold hearings about Nipplegate. Vince Guerrieri wonders why America's more pressing issues like 9/11 and Iraq took so much longer to get that far.
Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.
--Mark Twain
Well, our federal representatives seem to be busying themselves this time of year.
A few (U.S. Rep Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards) are vying for the Democratic nomination for President. It’s an election year for all 435 representatives and one-third of Senators.
Inbetween, some of them are actually trying to get work done.
Congress is holding hearings about the Super Bowl halftime show, Iraq and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. All three involve different kinds of intelligence failures. We had no inkling of a terrorist attack, and some of us didn’t even believe it until the second plane smashed into the second World Trade Tower. We went to war with Iraq for reasons that at best are difficult to prove and at worst are flat-out lies. And there was definitely a lapse in judgment on the Super Bowl halftime show, produced by MTV and including various violations of good taste.
Heads will probably roll as a result of the hearings on the Super Bowl halftime show. The NFL has already swore that MTV won’t be allowed to produce another halftime show ever again. But the results probably won’t be as clear-cut for the Iraq and 9/11 hearings.
In case you missed the halftime show and the ad nauseum rehashings, Kid Rock wore an American flag, Nelly gyrated and grabbed his crotch while urging people to take off their clothes, and in the piece de resistance, Justin Timberlake reached over and ripped off part of Janet Jackson’s top, exposing her right breast, nicely accessorized with a nipple medallion.
Of course, I found the halftime show particularly offensive, but only because it involved Timberlake and Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. I sing Sinatra in the office and I get made fun of. He samples Led Zeppelin and the Police and gets to sleep with Jennifer Lopez.
But what I find even more offensive is that while Congress, in its hoary wisdom, is willing to throw the book at CBS, MTV and Viacom, bigger crimes are being let go. When I read Howard Cosell’s autobiography, I Never Played the Game, I scoffed at the idea he had that the National Football League is the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. Now, I believe him. Paul Tagliabue got hearings within a week on Janet, Justin and the rest of the mess.
It took more than a year for President Bush to sign a law creating the 9/11 Commission. The commission has since interviewed more than 200 people and held public hearings. Its findings should be released by Aug. 25, 2004, a scant two weeks before the Gallant Old Party uses the death of 3,000 people for its own gain, holding the Republican National Convention in New York City, later than usual to coincide with the 3rd anniversary of Sept. 11.
Congressional hearings on Iraq will probably not be finished before Election Day, which will rob an irate public of the opportunity to be able to vote against Bush for a clear-cut, rational reason, instead of the knee-jerk distaste he now inspires.
We invaded Iraq and quickly deposed the government. President Bush went so far as to say “Mission Accomplished.” More Americans have died since then in Iraq than during the actual war. Not to be outdone, Bush said, “Bring ‘em on,” about threats of terrorism and insurgency in Iraq. The ancient Greeks called that hubris.
If you remember, we went to war because of an imminent (well, not imminent, but you know what I mean) threat by Iraq to have weapons of mass destruction, as well as a link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. The second charge might have some merit, although there has been no indication that Iraq aided in the planning or execution of terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. The first charge, thus far, does not. After ignoring the United Nations’ report that they couldn’t find weapons of mass destruction, the United States invaded the country, deposed the government and found…no weapons of mass destruction!
Of course, they blame Bill Clinton for this. Come to think of it, Bill Clinton’s also being blamed for 9/11. But blame’s like fertilizer…it has to be spread around equally. Clinton might have thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, but he sure didn’t go to war over it. Clinton might have allowed Osama bin Laden to become a threat, but he certainly benefited from the guns and money he got from the Reagan administration…come to think of it, so did Saddam Hussein.
But heads will roll because Janet Jackson showed one breast during a Super Bowl halftime show.
I haven’t decided if this is a sign of America’s Puritanical preoccupation with the pleasures of the flesh, or a willful misdirection of our attention. Either way, I don’t like it.
While Disney's Miracle takes to the screen, Dan Nied looks at the parallels between 1980 and modern America.
I was six months old when the Miracle On Ice happened.
So I don’t remember it all that well.
But in the 24 years since, I have learned enough about it to somewhat understand its importance to our country.
Of course, that is all people of my generation can hope for. We never really understood the tension between the United States and Russia. To me, it seemed like a lot of bickering and one-upmanship that never posed a threat to my elementary-school world. In retrospect, that political ignorance of was bliss and made the 1980s a pretty damn good time to be a kid.
Until I started college, the most important sporting event in my world was the Red Wings 1997 Stanley Cup. That is only because Steve Yzerman finally got his ring. My favorite group on that Red Wings team was The Russian Five, a group of Soviets that baffled the NHL with fluid puck movement and skating so liquid that it looked like they were floating. The oldest defenseman on that unit was Slava Fetisov, who played for the Soviet Olympic team in 1980 which lost to the Americans in the semi-finals in what was, of course, the most important sporting event in this country’s history.
It’s amazing how things change in 17 years. As an infant, I’m pretty sure I inherently hated Fetisov. In 1997, I consciously loved him.
Team sports thrive on civic pride. That’s why Boston hates New York so much. But when you magnify civic pride to the point of national pride, then you have the possibility of igniting a country. If you take that national pride and fuel it with an unbeatable storybook villain, then you have the makings of a miracle.
And when that miracle happens, you have the makings of a Hollywood movie that Disney can buy the rights to and make money from. And of course, that could never happen in Communist Russia.
So as Americans, we really cannot blame Disney for making a buck off the gold medal-winning 1980 American hockey team. That’s capitalism and we love it. But we can, however, make sure they get it right.
So Disney released Miracle last week and it turns out that the Mouse actually did a pretty good job. By focusing on coach Herb Brooks instead of the players, director Gavin O’Connor lets us in on the method behind Brooks’ madness. Brooks picked a team made up of scrappers and character players solely because he thought they could beat the Russians. After he assembled his team, Brooks forced them to bond together in fear and hatred of him. It turned out pretty well in the end.
Kurt Russell turns in a solid performance as Brooks, and gets convincing help from Eddie Cahill as goalie Jim Craig and Patrick O’Brien Demsey as captain Mike Eruzione.
The hockey scenes are amazing, if a little scattered and confusing at times. And while Disney’s propensity for over-the-top emotion is evident here, the movie is no more emotional than the real story.
There isn’t a lot that can really be said about “Miracle.” But O’Connor did pull off an enormous accomplishment. Even though the ending to this film is already known, the energy in the movie is palpable up until the final seconds of the game. Although the final score of 4-3 was established with 10 minutes to go in the game, it is nearly impossible not to wince as Craig gets peppered with shots as time winds down. In the theater I was in, the audience cheered as Al Michaels delivers his signature line: “Five seconds left…Do you believe in Miracles? YES!”
I, however, was not cheering. I was paralyzed by the tingles going up and down my spine. And when the tingles take over in the final seconds of a film, you know it was good.
But this movie can not stand on its own merit. For someone that doesn’t know the story of that fabled hockey team, this just seems like another Disney emotion-manipulating machine. Sort of a “Mighty Ducks” for adults. But because this story is true, and it was crucial to national morale in a time of great need, every defense against this emotional manipulation is dropped. Which is the same reason this meant so much to the country at the time. With the Hostage crisis embarrassing the nation and a national gas shortage, Americans did not have much to be proud of in 1979 and 1980.
But Miracle is exactly what we need today. It reminds us as a nation that something great can come during a bleak period in history. In post 9/11 America, when millions of Americans are out of work or constantly looking over their shoulder for a dirty bomb, sometimes the only thing that makes us forget about our crappy economy is popular culture: be it sports, movies, television or music. The film itself is not a great American treasure, but does its job in helping us remember that no fight is too big to win.
The political implications of the Miracle on Ice may not have been that lasting. That team did not topple communism or calm the threat of World War III. But they did give this country pride, which is the greatest feeling in the world while it lasts.
There might not be a modern day equivalent to the Miracle on Ice. These days American hockey teams are expected to win Olympic Medals. Russians have integrated into this country and into our team sports. And right now, no country can be looked upon as a threat as great as the Cold War era Soviet Union. Today our greatest threat is from militant Islamic terrorists. But that is the reason the Miracle on Ice should be held close to the heart of every American. It was something tangible that we could hold on to prove that the United States is the greatest country in the world.
And, unless Al Qaeda takes to the ice in 2006, no sporting event will never spur such national pride again.
As a child Chuck Soder consumed TV violence like thanksgiving leftovers. But, for some strange reason, that didn't lead him to a life of crime.
By Chuck Soder
210 west Writer [send email]
At age 14, I was probably the nicest boy any mother could ever want. But for a long, long time I couldn’t figure out why this childhood saint never became a bloodthirsty killer.
My sainthood came packaged in three parts:
1)I absolutely never cussed. Not even when my buddy Dan offered me $5 to use the Capital “F” in complete privacy.
2) I never talked dirty about girls. Not even to my friends, who were already quite verbose about our female classmates and their training bras.
3) I never once thought about hitting another human being. Well, except for my little sister – but even then, never in the face. Nor did I have a temper – I was a very nonviolent young man.
I can explain parts one and two: I was sheltered.
My family didn’t swear, so neither did I. Nor did I listen to music or watch anything but good ’ole pre-edited basic cable. As for sex, I didn’t watch MTV and mom censored me from everything else. She would ease up later in life, but when I was little, even a wedding kiss warranted a channel change.
But for years, the third part made zero sense.
I was a Quaker who loved – absolutely loved – blood, guts, gore, guns and anything that exploded or got blown to bits in an explosion. Tanks were cool, swords were cool and nunchucks were ultra-super cool. I watched the Sunday Afternoon Action Movie religiously, just hoping to see two kung fu guys kick each other in the face really, really hard. In my book, Steven Seagal’s “Hard to Kill” was a classic.
The first two pillars of my young sainthood eroded years ago. Just a few days on the streets (read: high school), and I was dropping F-bombs like it was World War Fuck. And I was talking about my buddy’s sister like, well, like no one should ever talk about anyone’s sister.
But a truckload of TV violence didn’t change me a bit.
This I couldn’t understand. For years, I had always liked some often-repeated celebrity quote that I once thought made sense: “I’d rather my child watch two people making love than two people killing each other.”
It sounds so good. Killing is worse than sex – and swearing, too – so killing is worse to watch, right?
My brain loved that quote. Perfect two-plus-two logic. My instincts, however, hated it but couldn’t figure out why.
That is, until last month, when I read a true literary classic – Jackie Chan: My Life in Action. Since age 7, the world’s greatest action hero spent every waking moment immersed in martial arts and fighting. Yet he’s never even been in a real fight.
He was only 7 – how did he come out so clean?
Because most kids that age know that violence is wrong. Not only have they heard it all their lives, but it’s also easy to see how hitting hurts others. It’s a black-and-white situation, even to a young mind. Not to mention that TV violence is usually used to beat a bad guy in grim circumstances.
And that is why violence is big on American TV. Most children can handle it.
Swearing, on the other hand, is rare on the tube. Know why? Because youngsters are obviously going to pick up the habit when a 22-year old like me can barely control it. College made me worse. Since then, I’ve spoken the world’s foulest four-letter word in front of grandma twice.
In one car ride.
Now that is disrespectful – or at least that’s what I’ve been taught. If my loins one day bear fruit, I don’t want them thinking it’s cool to act that way, at least not in many situations. Swearing isn’t murder, but it’s a hel…heck of a lot more habit forming.
While sex is becoming more prevalent on TV, you’ll still never see Basic Instinct on NBC without open-heart surgery in the editing room. And there’s good reason.
Parents constantly tell their kids not to hit or bite or kick. But they don’t talk about Dallas, or Debbie, or why those two shouldn’t “dance” at such a young age. They don’t tell their kids why that lady dresses in black, or why she always wants to “dish it out.” They also don’t tell youngsters why it’s not always best to listen to their hormones, which, like swearing, can lead to plenty of bad habits.
Even if parents tried to explain, kids would still be clueless. When it comes to sex, right and wrong is blurrier than HBO on any TV in my house. If understanding violence is simple addition, understanding sex is trigonometry. Even high school students don’t always get an “A” in the class.
But at least they’re old enough to pass.
Maybe I didn’t get a 4.0, but at least my teacher knew that I too young to grasp the material at age 8. Violence, well, I aced that course in elementary school. I haven’t even thought about hitting my sister – or anyone else – in more than a decade.
And that’s all despite the fact that the 10-year old in me still loves shoot-’em-ups and kung fu flicks. Especially this one movie where this one guy gets punched in the face so hard that his brain flies right out of his head. Sweet!
For Vince Guerrieri, the Super Bowl means three things: spaghetti, a party, and the ghosts of Grandma and Grandpa.
Ya gotta love livin’ baby, ‘cause dyin’s a pain in the ass! --Frank Sinatra
It’s about 2:30 p.m. on Super Bowl Sunday. I’m preparing for my sixth annual Super Bowl Party. About a dozen people should cram into the living room of my penthouse apartment in Carnegie. I’m making spaghetti sauce the way Grandma Guerrieri taught me, a recipe she learned from her mother.
Her words of wisdom hang heavy. “Don’t burn the garlic,” she told me. “Not only does it make the sauce bitter, but it’ll stink up the house.” The garlic and onion at the bottom of the pot is now covered up with tomato sauce, a little wine, sugar, salt, pepper, basil and the secret ingredient, baking soda (it cuts the acid … watching it melt into the sauce is a soothing moment, a little like watching Guinness settle).
The sauce simmers. I’m on my second glass of Dago Red. Frank Sinatra’s singing, “Strangers in the Night,” the first album of his I ever heard, on vinyl in my grandparents’ basement. I was about 11, shooting pool with Charlie.
I called home. Normally I’d call Grandma, but she’s not there any more. It’s been three weeks. It hasn’t been a week since what would’ve been her 78th birthday, and what is the eighth anniversary of the night Charlie (her husband and my grandfather, to the uninitiated) went to sleep and didn’t wake up.
Chuck (my father, to the uninitiated) told me I should have been weaned off this. Grandma stopped answering her phone at the nursing home shortly before Thanksgiving. But like my father, I’m a creature of habit. Chuck told me last week that he didn’t know what to do with the time he had now. He’d spent a lot of afternoons after work at the nursing home, looking after his mother and my last surviving grandparent.
Grandma’s birthday usually fell around Super Bowl weekend, but for the better part of the past eight years, I approached this time of the year with a mix of dread and celebration.
The first Super Bowl I really remember watching was XXV (that’s 25, for those of you who only know Roman numerals from Rocky movies). I was XIII years old, and we were all at Grandma and Charlie’s. Grandma was LXV years old that weekend. Whitney Houston sang the best version of the National Anthem at any Super Bowl I’ve ever seen, and the New York Giants beat the Buffalo Bills, XX-XIX, after Scott Norwood missed a field goal to win it for the Bills.
We ate fried chicken. Grandma loved chicken. Charlie hated it, a reminder of diets past, but humored his wife. We ordered in. Grandma was one of those old-school Italian women who always had a meal ready.
I told the Rev. Dave Rhodes as he was preparing for her eulogy that I was 14 years old before I knew shirt boxes normally held shirts, not cookies. I knew that every time I stopped to see Grandma, I could get a meal out of it. Even if I surprised her, she’d ask if I ate, and if I said no, she’d disappear into the kitchen. I’d hear pots clanging and water running, and within 15 minutes, I’d have pasta, bread and butter and a salad.
In my first year of college, the Cleveland Browns decided to pack up and leave town and the Pittsburgh Steelers made it to the Super Bowl, another turn of the knife in the hearts of Browns fans everywhere. The Friday before the Super Bowl was Grandma’s birthday – a milestone for her. She’d turn 70.
I called to wish Grandma happy birthday, and talked to Charlie for what turned out to be the last time. The next morning, Chuck got a frantic call from Grandma.
“I can’t wake up your father.”
I was out all day Saturday, and found out Sunday morning. My friends were in Bowling Green from Youngstown, and drove me home after Super Bowl XXX (the Steelers lost to the Dallas Cowboys, XXVII-XVII…pity Charlie missed it. He always enjoyed watching the Steelers lose).
The funeral was howlingly funny. We remembered the stupid things Charlie did (the funniest of which involved him using a marital aid to massage his scalp and regrow hair) and I ate well. I set back to Bowling Green to finish my second semester in college and grieve.
My junior year in college, I remained in a residence hall, but my friends started moving into houses and apartments. The Denver Broncos were playing the Green Bay Packers. Deep in the recesses of my heart, brain and soul, I thought of Charlie, who died over Super Bowl weekend two years earlier. Charlie had never met a party (or a meal) that he could walk away from. When his brother Kenny was fighting a losing battle against cancer, Charlie and his brothers took up a collection, which they used for a party for Kenny.
I knew that Charlie would approve of a Super Bowl party as a way to keep the reminder of his death at bay. In my mind, I could hear him say “fuck ‘em” at the fates themselves, who conspired to take him on the day after a party for his wife’s 70th birthday, and the day before the Super Bowl, the greatest cause for parties in America.
I spent the afternoon and much of the evening in the kitchen, making pepperoni rolls for the evening. I played to a packed house, and John Elway finally got a Super Bowl victory, defeating the defending champions, the Green Bay Packers.
The next year, I continued the tradition, this time making spaghetti sauce. I received many compliments on The Sauce, which of course I passed along to Grandma. I didn’t get to eat much of it. I was bustling around the kitchen cooking and playing host. Grandma would have approved.
She liked cooking for an audience, but wouldn’t eat. She’d stand at the snack bar with a cigarette in her hand. I don’t know how she did it, but Grandma, her three sisters and her two sisters-in-law could all hold a cigarette with an inch of ash without it moving! After Charlie died, she shed a lot of weight, because she didn’t have that built-in audience to cook for.
So I continued the tradition, cooking spaghetti for Super Bowl parties, even when I moved to Pittsburgh. Last year, though, I didn’t throw a party. I had my own crosses to bear and too many things going wrong in my life. I called Grandma on Super Bowl Sunday, her 77th birthday. I had been home three weeks earlier, watching the Ohio State Buckeyes win the national championship Friday night. I went to Grandma’s on Sunday to watch the Browns and the Steelers in the AFC playoffs.
The Browns jumped out to an early lead. We were ecstatic. Grandma made spaghetti. The Steelers came back and won. Grandma and I swore and threw things at the television. It was our last normal afternoon together.
I was home the weekend after the Super Bowl for a friend’s wedding and Mom’s gallbladder surgery. As it turned out, I would be spending far more time at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital.
I visited a friend, who lived in the same apartment complex as Grandma, for pizza and The GodfatherII (which she hadn’t seen). I noticed an ambulance in front of another building.
“That looks like Grandma’s building,” I thought. My mind instantly wandered to the worst. “Naah,” I thought to myself. “If something was bad, I’d get a call.”
Right about when someone tried to kill Frank Pentangeli, I got the call. Mom told me Grandma had fallen and broken her leg. Grandma had to move out of her apartment and into a nursing home. I got her couch. She made me promise not to have sex on it.
About two weeks after moving into the nursing home, Grandma had a heart attack. At least, a doctor told her that. She wasn’t buying it.
“You’re fulla shit,” she told the doctor.
In August, she went into the hospital for organ failure. She had a blown valve in her heart. It wouldn’t heal on its own. Doctors wouldn’t open her up to fix it. She also had kidney failure. We were pretty sure the only way she was leaving the hospital was in a bag.
But she rallied, and went back to the nursing home.
“I don’t understand how she’s still alive,” Chuck said.
“She’s too mean to die,” I told him.
The funeral director, who had known her for most of her life, called her “feisty,” a nice diplomatic way of putting it. Grandma was a lioness. We were all her cubs, and God help you if you came between her and her family. The nurse on duty at South Side Hospital sent Grandma home as her sister lay dying of cancer.
“But my sister’s probably not going to make it through the night,” Grandma said. The nurse remained indifferent. Sure enough, Aunt Phil died that night. The next day, Grandma saw red. A doctor got lippy with her. She cold-cocked him.
Aunt Phil didn’t have insurance, so Grandma started getting bills. She called the hospital with ice water in her veins and rage in her voice.
“I’ll pay ten dollars a week until I die if I have to,” she said.
“Just let me talk to the nurse who sent me home the night my sister died.” She never got another bill again.
Before I left for college, she told me, “Behave or I’ll kill you.” To prove she meant it, she added, “I can just as easily end my life in prison as I can in a nursing home.”
The last noteworthy moment I had with her was before Thanksgiving. I usually saw her on Sunday, hungover and on my way back to Pittsburgh.
But that weekend, I saw her on Saturday. She noticed, and asked me why. I told her – a blonde with cool glasses named Kate agreed to be seen in public with me Sunday evening, to watch a screening of the rerelease of Alien.
“Get my purse,” Grandma said, and pulled a twenty out to help defray the cost of the evening’s fun.
Shortly after that, Grandma quit eating. She quit drinking. She quit taking her oxygen. She kept taking her painkillers. Not answering her phone was an afterthought.
“She made up her mind,” Chuck told me.
She was fairly lucid when I saw her for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
After that, she faded away. Charlie and my mother’s mother died suddenly, a shock if not a surprise. It wasn’t easy. After Grandma died, I discovered it wasn’t much easier when you saw it coming.
For the Super Bowl party, I went through three pounds of spaghetti (well, two pounds of spaghetti and one pound of linguine, if you want to be particular), three loaves of garlic bread, a bottle of Coke and half a case of beer for the Super Bowl, as well as a giant cookie cake brought by a pretty girl of Italian descent, first generation American, just like Grandma.
I got some praise for the sauce, but I didn’t need it. Grandma thought the best compliment she could get for her sauce was silence.
“I don’t hear anyone complaining, so it must be good,” she told me.
The Patriots won. Bill Belichick got his second Super Bowl ring. I watched him win his first playoff game, with the Browns against the Patriots, at Grandma and Charlie’s.
It’s now 11:30 p.m. I turned on Junior Walker and the All-Stars.
They’re singing, “How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You.” Charlie would sing it once in a while when he was in a good mood, particularly when he was beating me at cards.
After being on my feet for most of the last 12 hours, my heels are killing me, and I’m exhausted. I’m still young and in relatively good shape. Grandma was well on the other side of 50 by the time I knew her, overweight and a chain smoker. How she did it for years, I’ll never know.
If there is a God and a Heaven, Grandma’s got her feet up and she’s eating. I figure she deserves it.
Zach Baker regrets every second he spent watching the Superbowl and all its accompanying "entertainment."
By Zack BakerEvery time I think that I have seen the worst that television has to offer, television surprises me.
"My Big Fat Greek Life" might be the worst television show ever spawned off a movie, and that's saying a lot.
"Inside Schwartz" was so bad I had to consult a psychologist just to make sure these awful scenes were actually seen by people other than me. And MTV's decline from a music network to a network that centers more around sex than music brought me reason to always stay off the channel.
Knowing how bad television could be, I should have just avoided the Super Bowl halftime show. My friends recommended that we order the Lingerie Bowl, but the cost, and my general objection to the whole concept, kept me from ordering. Little did I know what occurred on the Super Bowl would be more exposing than anything the model-halfbacks could have come up with. Now, let me say that I am rarely offended by anything on grounds of taste.
Maybe it's the culture I have grown up in, maybe it's my overall boundaries, but I am not usually offended. And be sure that I wasn't offended by the halftime show itself. I thought it was stupid, pointless and self-congratulatory, but it didn't really offend me, even after Janet showed a little too much at the end.
In fact, I was more offended by the pre-game show, which featured a stupid vignette with Aerosmith in a space shuttle a year to the day of the Columbia disaster. The NFL pre-game show was even filled with touching stories about the accident.
It seemed a bad time to be making an Armageddon farce.
What was strange about the halftime show was the fact that I was wondering what parents around the country were thinking. While halftime shows usually contain more waste than a supermarket hot dog, they are rarely offensive.
If I were a parent (which, thankfully, I am not) I'd have switched the channel as soon as I saw the dominatrix outfits come out during Janet Jackson's set. Yet I doubt that many parents had any idea that the worst was yet to come.
Justin Timberlake showed up.
OK, that wasn't it.
But it was for me.
Anyone with half a brain knows that everything that occurred at the end of the show was not only planned, but known. There is blame to be assessed here, but I'm not sure it lies entirely with the performers and the choreographers.
If the organizations involved didn't know what was coming, than they deserve to be punished for being too naive, if nothing else. Anyone who has seen MTV over the last 10 years had to know that the envelope was going to be not only pushed but seemingly torn open and then burned for good measure.
The NFL, CBS, and MTV all knew that the show was going to be raunchy. If the NFL cared, they would have objected to CBS as soon as they saw the name "Kid Rock" on the performing list. (I like Kid Rock, I'm just saying he won't be mistaken for one of the Osmonds.)
Oh, and just for the record, I could do without the circus at halftime. It's stupid even when it doesn't offend. If I wanted to watch music videos, I'd watch MT....
Wait, do they even do that anymore?