The Accidental Voice

You’re watching TV. An attractive couple lies in a bed breathless and obviously happy. They hold each other and whisper sweet nothings. Planting a quick kiss on her lover’s cheek, the woman says she’ll be right back, pulls to comforter to cover her nakedness and slides out of bed. On the way out of the room the comforter slips revealing her bare backside.

People are up in arms.

Two performers are singing a song with subtle erotic intent. It is a song about a man desiring the woman and promising her they’ll be together before the song finishes. With the final assertion that he’ll have her naked by the end of it, he reaches over and strips away part of her bodice to reveal a bare breast, a star covers her nipple.

People lose their freakin’ minds!

A man is being chased by the evil doppleganger of a female character. He has information that she needs to become more powerful. The gap closes and the man with the briefcase is eventually cornered amongst the desks and file cabinets of a dimly lit office building. The event of his death is hinted at just before the commercial break. The next scene is a shot of him lying face up, eyes open. His feet are up by his head because he has been cut in half and he lies in a very red and disturbingly large pool of blood.

No one says a thing.

Jack Bauer chases the badies each week. He gets them every time. Each 24 hour period we see him consistently save the country from becoming a smoking hole. And in the pursuit of that justice he must employ any means necessary. In fact, on a single season of “24″ there were 57 graphic depictions of torture.

Barely a peep.

Let’s be clear people. We, as animals, are here for only two things at our core. To survive and to make more of us. The first makes us eat, breath, sense trouble and scamper away or fight back if we get in a jam. The second makes us make love and desire that act in order to further the species (granted this is all an over simplification but it furthers my thesis, it’s my story and I’m sticking with it.)

All the rest, the cars, money, power, possessions, clothes, power ties, titles and perceived influence over others is all window dressing. If someone kills another person simply to gain something that person has, it is not because of the two reasons above, it is something that is many degrees removed (although might be tracable to, say, survival in some way). But that’s the story that leads on the local evening news.

So tell me, why is it OK for TV to have depictions of violence, very disturbing violence, but not OK for depictions of love and kindness and gentle intimacy? People absolutely love watching boxing or Mixed Martial Arts (and they pay huge sums of money to do it) in which two people go at it with no holds barred, bare-fisted pummeling of each other. Every Sunday we watch as giants slam into each other and slam each other to the ground in order for one team to take the other’s land away (George Carlin posited, once, that it was simply a weekly reenactment of the white man’s treatment of the Indians.) My wife and I have speculated that it is only a matter of time before the days of the gladiators are brought back. And MMA is pretty close as it is. Such hostility, such anger and such seeming hatred.

Where does this come from? A romantic comedy about two friends who are in love but don’t know it yet, and decide the only way to get out of the financial hole their in is to make an erotic movie gets an “NC-17″ rating (Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Oooh, it has porno in the title and shows naked people.) A movie, the fifth in a wildly popular series, about a guy who wears someone else’s facial skin as a mask and tortures people in a serial rampage gets a rating of “R” (Saw V. No questions asked.)

Does anyone else see the madness in this? The sheer and absolutely stunning imbalance? Last time I checked no one was walking around in tall hats with buckles on their shoes, but holy moly it seems the puritans have come home to roost. As if the crusades were OK, but making love to someone is, oh heavens me, something to cover up, close a door on and make sure you never discuss in public. Just last night we saw three ads for video games that were rated M and had quite a bit of violence. One actually showed an image of a hand with only a bloody stump where the thumb used to be. All before 9 pm. I saw no naked butts though. My land o’ Goshen, no.

We are all naked under our clothes and we all grow up wanting (needing?) to make love with someone. But we are not all serial killers, torturers and violent to our core. I, for one, would much rather see someone naked on television than see a man cut in half in a pool of his own blood. And I would definitely prefer that over watching two guys beat each other to a bloody pulp for sport. OK, full frontal nudity might be taking it too far, especially if it’s a guy, because, face it fellas, women have the upper hand on this one. And too, it could be disturbing to young children so some decorum and logic are necessary here. But come on. What’s the appeal of all this violence?

There is enough violence in the world in reality and enough people willing to use that violence or the threat of it to bend the “people” to their will. Despite all that, for some reason, people love to go see more of it in fantasy. And when Cher says “F**k ‘em” about the critics who said she wouldn’t last (a case currently before the Supreme Court) or a naked breast is shown for but a second and then quickly covered, people lose their minds, the FCC is all up in arms and the telephones at the complaints departments light up. Lawsuits are filed and there’s all this tut tuting about how offensive a word or naked body part is. And a bloody thumbless hand isn’t?

Who has instilled this fear of love and sex in our society? Who has decided that the very thing that makes us human is a disagreeable thing? It’s not! Who felt it necessary to cover up something so magnificent and wonderous and lovely as the human body while allowing violence, rage, hatred and anger to flood our senses unabated?

We live in a society where it’s shocking when a rich heiress is seen naked and sexual on a video tape (but oh, how the networks love to show snippets and how people love to search the internet for it. That’s for another blog maybe) but it’s not shocking that Blockbuster displays incredibly disturbing DVD covers throughout its stores. DVD covers for the Saw series and other violent horror films. Images of a girl being tortured, realistic dead people or knives with copious amounts of blood dripping from them. Images of pale hands with broken and bloodied finger nails. Images that, when seen by a young boy of 9, produce nightmares for a week. We don’t sit in wonderment when those DVD covers are willingly displayed, but covers of DVDs that depict a lot of naked people are relegated to the back room or not carried at all. And while we’re at it, I am not sure if it’s more disturbing that it’s being shown or that there is someone in the world who is capable of actually thinking this stuff up.

Let me pause here and say that 99% of adult videos take it way too far, are fantastically unrealistic and have a tendency to debase the actors or treat both the men and women as simple objects and not humans. And they’re kind of silly, but this is not what I’m talking about here, and although I have not seen many of them, it doesn’t take a genius to see a pattern. This particular genre is a study unto itself.

There is a story about an anthropologist who goes to visit a tribe of Indians in an arid part of the southwest. Every morning the shaman goes out to the rim of the canyon and sings to water. Without fail, as the sun rises, his songs in praise of water drift out over the vast expanse. Every song is different. The anthropologist thinks this a bit odd so asks the shaman why there are so many songs about water. The shaman answers that it is the thing they would miss the most if they were without it. It is the one thing they most need in their lives but have very little of. The shaman also mentions that he’s noticed a lot of the songs in America are about love and that seems odd to him.

So if we crave the affections of others and need love and tenderness so badly that we create song after song after song about it; if we work so hard to connect with others and connect with that special person with whom we wish to share the joys of intimacy; if we step back a second and realize that physical intimacy tends to be the underpinning of many of the things we see around us, how is it there is such a celebration and popularity of the violent, the angry, the visceral. Why are horror movies given a rating of “R” without a thought but when a movie depicts a little more than general nudity, anguished decision making, wringing of hands and arguing between the director and MPAA ensue? Movies are boycotted even. Kids are taught that sex and intimacy are dirty and are things to be embarrassed about. That the human body should not be celebrated but covered up and hidden. It just seems all so skewed to me. So out of balance.

Would that our songs could be about water…

There are some things in life that you experience young but only fully understand when the wisdom of age has layered enough of it’s dust upon your heart. Over the past decade, there have been more than just a few times which, for me, bear this consideration out. One such instance has to do with newspapers, AT&T, a money changer and a 12-year-old, toe-headed boy who was just not aware enough because he just wasn’t old enough.

From the time I sold newspapers at the old AT&T building in downtown Wayne, PA until now in my current self-employment and business ownership, I have only been fired once. And it was from that paper selling job (I wouldn’t call it a paper route because I just stood there and sold papers, no route to follow.) Of the 15-20 positions I have held, I have always kept myself to a standard of decency, hard work and integrity that has been a pretty fine way to operate. ( Well, mostly anyway…there was that one time, but that’s, perhaps, another story.) This paper selling job was no different.

I would practice making change with one of those metal change holders you hook to your belt with the cool levers that shot coins out the bottom. I’d pretend someone handed me a five or a one and would whip out the proper change; quickly subtracting thirty-five cents and making up the difference from the stacks of coins in the tubes just large enough to hold quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies. I would practice folding the paper in a tri-fold as quickly as I could and pretend to hand it off as I made change. While standing there when I saw them come out from around the corner, I would see if I could tell what money they were carrying so I could get a head start on making change. And although I sometimes got distracted by counting the cars on the train that occasionally passed across the street and on the other side of the parking lot, I’d be attentive and serious about my job.

And so it went and I loved my job. It was simple, it was indoors in the lobby of the red brick building with the tall tower. A tower so high you could see if from just about everywhere in town. The red brick building that had darker brick squares on the lower floors because of a spate of smoke bombings some years before (I was never really sure why that happened…too young, but I knew the best parts of the story…smoke and bombs.)

And every day there would be a stack of papers waiting for me when I rode up on my bike. I would sell just every one, most days, but sometimes I would have a few left over. That was OK. I had a procedure for that. I’d ask the guard from Pinkerton to pull out his little card with the commission conversion chart on it and I’d take what was mine. Then I’d put the rest in my other pocket, ride down to Rexall Drug and walk to the back of the store. There, I’d put the driver’s money into a white envelope, wrap the envelope up and put it into a mortar and pestle that was on top of the back shelves behind the pharmacist’s counter. The extra papers (if I had any) would go below than on another shelf at the bottom. And out I would go…a few dollars richer and proud to be doing what I was asked to do. Doing it right as rain every single time.

So, I could never understand why every once in a while, the driver would say I shorted him some money. Every once in a while, he’d say there weren’t enough papers left for the money I’d left in that envelope in the mortar and pestle. And I was sure I’d counted right. I began counting twice and it was right. But I kept being told I was short.

Then one day, the paper called my mom and said they no longer needed me. I cried and was sad for a while. I was so proud of my job. And I had always thought they let me go because they didn’t need to sell papers there any more. The Philadelphia Bulletin folded not too many years later so maybe it was because they were trying to cut costs. After all, I was only making them maybe ten or fifteen bucks a day…nothing really. And eventually, it faded into the dark reaches of memory. It became an insignificant time that had very little meaning other than being one of those books on the shelves of your mind.

But then one day a few years ago, it occurred to me what might have happened. I don’t know what made me think of it, nor could I even begin to think of why it mattered. It was just there.

I will never have any proof but I became convinced that the nice man behind the counter (he was probably 25, maybe 30 years old), was taking papers and perhaps others were too. After all, they were sitting there in the back out in the open and the papers the store sold were up front.

What’s to stop someone from just putting one into their stuff to take home. But, then again, anyone could have come along and made the mistake of thinking they were for sale, too. And maybe that’s what happened. Maybe the nice man behind the counter wasn’t being mean and stealing my papers. I will never know for sure and it doesn’t really matter. And maybe it’s not resolved all that much. But I felt better when I thought of those possibilities. Maybe honest mistake, maybe theft, maybe my mind fabricating something that never was. I was relieved to think that my diligence wasn’t for naught and I had done everything right and I had counted properly.

Connecting the dots of a past uncertainty with newly found wisdom of age may not always quite solve a mystery, vindicate a wrong or suddenly bring clarity to something that has always caused confusion. But it can still tie up a loose end, or close the book on a chapter that is long overdue of being finished. Wisdom is a funny thing. Sometimes it can make you smart and sometimes, it can simply perform a little piece of historical magic.

My 11-year-old has taken a keen interest in cooking and one day announced he wanted to make fettuccini alfredo (these pronouncements have come often of late..always something new.) So we did. What we didn’t expect was how incredibly delicious it would be. It is, by far, the best I have ever had and this coming from someone who in younger years actively sought out a better and better source of fettuccini alfredo…some search for ribs, for me it’s flat pasta in cheesy cream sauce.

And it’s finally here. At last we can get that silence which comes with the main stream media looking around and asking themselves, “what now?” And as you watch the returns or if you are reading this after things have been written in stone, I have something for you. It is a symphony for your tongue, a celebration of flavor, a soothing of the soul. If your man won, this will add that much more, or if your man didn’t quite pull it out, this will make you feel better.

Because, food is a powerful thing. To deny ourselves the pleasure of eating is to deny one of the very things that makes us human. Some eat for health, some eat to dull the pain and the rest are somewhere in between. Since the dawn of time, coming together and sharing food has always been at the heart of family and a constant in human’s lives.

I have heard it said that if it’s good to you, it ain’t good for you and with this we’re in a whole lotta big bad trouble here. So if you’re looking for something for dinner tonight, give this one a try. But if you’re looking for something healthy, maybe try scrambled eggs whites with Gimme Lean mixed in because you won’t find that here.

Here’s our (actually, my son’s) little contribution to any gathering you might have, whether a party of one or a group of many. (full disclosure: this is our own remastering of a recipe at recipezaar.com. Never leave a recipe un-touched. Take nothing at face value. Question everything. Void the warranty.)

INGREDIENTS:
6 Tbls sweet unsalted butter
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 cups heavy cream (see? good to ya, not so good for ya)
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 1/2 cups shredded parmasean cheese
2 cups shredded five italian cheese blend
1 or 2 boxes of whole grain pasta (any kind, it doesn’t have to be fettuccini and at least there is this to cancel out some of the that above)

Put some water on to boil for the pasta.

Melt the butter in a medum sauce pan over medium to low heat.

Add garlic, cream, white pepper and bring it all to a simmer. Not a boil, a simmer. Stir often.

Add the parmesan cheese and simmer sauce for 8-10 minutes or until sauce has thickened. *don’t let it get too hot* it will get too thick and clumpy and that’s no good. Think smooth. Think silk. Think aaaaaah.

Add the mozzarella cheese and stir this until also smooth, stir frequently and, I can’t stress this enough, don’t let it get too hot.

While the sauce cooks a little longer on medium to low (You’re erring on the side of low, right?) boil the pasta for 3-5 minutes.

Now, dish it up, park yourself on the couch and feel good no matter what happens. Want something health, toos some spices and parmesan cheese with broccoli. Or just go with the garlic bread (you can never have enough garlic). And then tomorrow hit the gym and be happy with the world or that the world didn’t end.

Bon Appetito