Archive | Country Matters

Female Finger Wagging: Oscars Edition

Usually Bill McCuddy and I troll each other but on our Talking Pictures Oscars prediction show, we troll Tr%mp and Hollywood—in that order. Along with Neil Rosen and Perri Nemiroff, we talk scandals, showmanship, sequins, and, of course, our picks for most major categories. Tune into NY1 today (or your local Spectrum station) for our picks of what will and should win; follow my Oscar-night tweets for über-snark, dahlinks.

Named and Counted

Whenever I’m feeling lost, bereft, furious, or, yes, joyous, I list my blessings. I’ve done it since I was a child and I’ll do it on the last day of my life. It’s how I start every prayer; how I enter scary rooms; how I honor all triumphs. It’s powerful to visit with the bright light that pours through our lives in even the worst moments.

From the minute this coup seized the White House, it has attacked every vulnerable corner of our land and our people. Many of us have been living with the heaviest of hearts–so heavy that our immune systems are eroding, so heavy that we wake with lumps already closing our throats. Enter the Tr%mp Flu: fever, chills, despair. Not since Mr Oyster have I been this laid out, and not until reconnecting with my lifelong ritual have I begun to heal. Now, before turning on electronics or even making coffee, I name and count blessings. It connects me to the child I once was, the crone I hope to become. I thank the divine feminine in all her manifestations and honor the light that precedes all shadows. Then and then only then do I turn things on, heat things up, join this eclipse.

OJ Simpson and the Dual Realities of Our Land

I spent the day at Metrograph rewatching OJ Simpson: Made in America in its entirety. Once again I found it stunning in its meticulously layered breakdown of how media, race, gender, violence, money, and injustice intersect in OJ’s rise and fall, in the history of the LAPD, and in the precarious construct of fame.

It’s shocking to realize it’s been more than two decades since all this occurred. I remember crushing out on OJ when I was a little girl; he was so damn fast, so fine, so fly. And those dimples! Also so damn funny in the Naked Gun movies (an echo you saw o shit when he infamously hamhanded the gloves in his double murder trial.) I remember crying at my kitchen table when the Rodney King verdict was delivered, crying again when LA burned afterward. I remember watching that white Bronco slide slo-mo down LA freeways with Julian and Michael (our 20something love triangle temporarily on hold while the 12 hours of this drama juicily eclipsed our own), and I remember the news suddenly being ALL OJ ALL THE WAY for the next year. Continue Reading →

"All, everything I understand, I understand only because I love."
― Leo Tolstoy