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Sick Note is Just What We All Need Right Now!

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Whenever I feel down or overwhelmed and want to fall into TV Time, my first instinct is not to turn to comedy. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, because comedy can really take your mind off of the bad for a while, but that’s just how this nutty girl rolls. For example, this past Friday night, I spent the evening watching AMC’s remake of The Little Drummer Girl. Nothing like revisiting the Palestine-Israel nightmare while trying to take your mind off of the damage Putin-Appointed Trump is doing to the United States.

It’s not like I couldn’t have caught up on some of the comedy shows I watch that were on my DVR: blackish, The Good Place, Single Parents, The Goldbergs, or Fresh Off The Boat. I love all these shows, but when I’ve finished a Monday-through-Friday week, and it’s all I can do not to make voodoo dolls of too many people with whom I’ve interacted, and I think I won’t be able to breathe another minute because I’m still not over the 2016 Presidential election having been stolen from Hillary Clinton, I don’t think, “Girl, you really need to laugh. Go watch something funny.”

Nope. I go look for the darkest (yet, not bloody) show I can find. Must be all the Scorpio planets I have in my chart. So, after I watched the documentary, The Panama Papers, on Saturday night, I did not search for something light and funny as a follow-up watch. Instead, I tried to find a mind-bending thriller. However, since I’d binged most of the psychological thrillers and espionage movies and shows on both cable and Netflix, and I couldn’t bear the thought of a Christmas movie or any kind of romance, I told myself that I should watch something funny, especially if I could find something British. I’m not quite sure how I missed Sick Note when it came out in 2017, but I blame Trump and the GOP.

The storyline for Sick Note didn’t sound terribly intriguing – a young man gets diagnosed with cancer, but after an incompetent oncologist lets him know he really doesn’t have cancer, the young man can’t quite find the nerve to update everyone with the good news. Why? Because all of his friends, family, and co-workers now treat him with love and kindness, versus how they used to treat him – like the useless log he was. I passed over this show multiple times, but when I couldn’t find anything else, I soothed myself with the thought that, “Since it’s British, it might be better than it sounds,” and I selected Sick Note.

I spent the first few minutes of the first episode trying to figure out why the guy playing the lead role of Daniel Glass looked so familiar. After I realized it was Ron Weasley all grown up, I was able to concentrate on the story. Before Daniel gets diagnosed with esophageal cancer, he’s just your average guy who loves to play video games while his attractive girlfriend, Becca, pays the rent on their cute apartment. And while Daniel is a layabout, his best friend, Ash, has his life together with a job, a wife, and a new baby.

Daniel doesn’t mind Becca’s late nights at work because he doesn’t know she uses this time to bone his bestie. He’s just grateful for the extra time to play video games while talking with another gamer, Will_5000, who lives in America. Since Daniel doesn’t stop gaming, even when Becca comes home, Will_5000 listens in on all of the couple’s conversations and knows everything going on in his British friend’s life.

Note: I’m purposefully not showing a picture of Will_5000 because you really need to watch the series to get the full Will_5000 effect.

When Daniel does manage to make it to work, he’s upset because Becca has broken up with him, with Will_5000 as a witness (at least, audibly). Daniel figures he has nothing better to do so he shows up at work with a sling on his right arm, as he has told his boss, Michael, that he recently hurt it and can’t work as much as he used to because he has no use of his one arm. Hence an excuse for Daniel to just laze around the office; or, not even show up, as his arm is “hurting” or because he has a doctor’s appointment, which he always manages to miss.

At work, Michael’s boss, Kenny West, is losing it in Michael’s office. This angry, ranting man is played by none other than Don Johnson. West is a lascivious, right-wing, big-animal-trophy-hunting con man who sells “health insurance” in the United Kingdom. Daniel is a customer service rep for West’s company, We Cover. A more apt name would be We Cover Nothing!

The reason West is angry and yelling at Michael is because We Cover is supposed to be featured on a British talk show and West is upset because everyone at We Cover is “too ugly to be on TV,” except for this one cutie, Linda, who West wants to bed.

To calm West down, the ineffective and spineless Michael agrees to fire at least one person – Daniel – but Michael lets West know he can’t do so until after Daniel gets back from his doctor’s appointment. Michael then exits his office and goes to where Daniel sits to remind him that he has said doctor’s appointment. When Michael questions why Daniel is wearing his sling on his right arm when he hurt his left arm, we get to see more reason why Becca broke up with Daniel.

We also witness West going amongst the people he considers beneath him to invite Linda to lunch. While she accepts his invitation, it’s only because she wants to sell something to West, and it’s not her body. Linda is a small-time entrepreneur and inventor, who has created a rubber vitamin dispenser that one can put on their thumb and then suck down vitamins embedded in the rubber. When Linda demonstrates how to use the vitamin thingy, you can just the simultaneously revulsion and lust in West’s eyes.

Before Daniel meets with his doctor, he’s told that his regular doctor is away and that he’ll be seeing a Dr. Iain Glennis. Daniel is unaware that Dr. Glennis has just been told by another more-senior doctor that his doctoring is so bad that if he makes one more mistake, then his worthless derriere is fired! The senior doctor reminds Dr. G that he was brought on temporarily only as a replacement while the regular doctor was away because – I don’t know – there were no other available doctors in all of the UK? Knowing that his wife will leave him if he’s no longer a doctor, Dr. G agrees to make no more mistakes (as if that’s possible).

And then, when he sees Daniel, Dr. G mistakenly tells the young man that he has cancer. Later, when the doctor realizes his horrible gaffe, he calls Daniel back into his office and tries to get him to sign a waiver saying that it wasn’t Dr. Glinnis’ fault that he told Daniel he had cancer. Like it was some other person’s fault? Daniel refuses to sign the waiver. He leaves the doctor’s office and returns to a life that now has a loving girlfriend, a kind boss and co-workers, and parents who no longer blame him for nearly killing them in an earlier car accident that occurred when Daniel was at the wheel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9O9SjTABFQ

The hullabaloo occurs when Daniel tries to figure out whether he should tell everyone in his life the good news. He’s wont to do so as he figures all the love and kindness will disappear. He talks over his dilemma with Will_5000 and decides to remain “sick” a little while longer.

It’s only after Daniel comes home a day or so later and finds evidence that Becca and Ash had been having sex in his and Becca’s bed, that Daniel starts to re-think his life. While puzzling over the new-found affair, Daniel is unaware that Ash is hanging on to a pipe outside of Daniel and Becca’s bathroom window, as Ash and Becca had only finished their coupling a few minutes earlier. Becca had only been away from the apartment for about 15 minutes when Daniel came in and Ash was on the toilet. Hearing his friend enter the apartment, Ash hops off an unflushed toilet, pulls up his pants, and crawls outside the second-story window, where he proceeds to hang off ta nearby pipe.

When Daniel looks in the window, he’s horrified at what he sees in the toilet. He then looks out the bathroom window, sees Ash hanging there, and opens the window to curse him out. This action causes Ash to fall two stories and land hard on the ground. Not sure whether Ash is dead, Daniel calls Dr. Glinnis to come help him, blackmailing him into doing so by telling the doctor that if he doesn’t help him, then Daniel will let everyone know about the cancer debacle.

From here, a misdiagnosis of death occurs, followed by a not-so-bright policeman thinking the KGB tried to kill Ash. Becca shows that she’s willing to sleep with anyone and puts the make on Ash’s wife, and after Will_5000 shows up unexpectedly from America with a startling something on his face, Becca proves that she’ll have it on with anyone, even the “mutilated.”

Then there’s what happens to Mr. West and the entrance of his daughter, played by Lindsay Lohan, who is forced to leave her family of baboons (or monkeys or gorillas – I’m not sure – I was laughing so hard) and come to England to save her father’s company. Like her father, she is charmed by Linda, but she’s not in it for Linda’s body. She’s in it for Linda’s vitamin thumb. Apparently, baboons like to suck. Have they met Becca?

Oh, and Daniel becomes a national hero, and Dr. Glinnis begins working towards a cancer cure (or, not), and so much hilarity ensues that I laughed so hard, I literally hurt myself. On three separate occasions, not only was I in pain from laughing beyond anything I’ve ever done before, but I simultaneously couldn’t breathe. At one point, I remember thinking, “I can’t die this way. I’m barely dressed.”

If you’re not a fan of British comedies, you probably won’t like Sick Note. But if you’re into comedy that sneaks up on you and shocks you and makes you roll around in pain, then this is the perfect series for you. If you liked the British original of Death at a Funeral, then I think you’ll like this sick romp. During Death, I laughed so hard I shot red wine out of my nose (no exaggeration); but, I think I laughed harder during Sick Note. So, check it out and let me know what you think. Here’s to there being a Season 3!

Sally Ride, a Woman of Many Firsts

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Sally Ride was the first American woman to venture into space in 1983. While two Soviet women cosmonauts had actually gone into space before her, Ride remains the youngest astronaut of all to have traveled into space, doing so at age 32.

Ride was born in 1951 in Los Angeles to two parents who were elders in a Presbyterian church. Additionally, Ride’s father worked as a political science professor at Santa Monica College, and Ride’s mother was a volunteer counselor at a women’s correctional facility. Ride’s sister, Karen “Bear” Ride, also became an out Presbyterian minister. While Bear was out, though, Ride chose to remain quiet about her sexuality. Bear is quoted as saying that she felt their Norwegian heritage, which taught that one must keep their lives low-key, was a reason for why Ride never came out while alive. Additionally, back in the day, NASA was not known to be gay-friendly. Thankfully, that has changed, and NASA now supports its LGBTQI employees. Most people were surprised about Ride, though. They had no idea that she was gay until her obituary mentioned that she and Tam O’Shaughnessy, a professor emerita of the school of psychology at San Diego State, had been partners.

After graduating High School, Ride attended Swarthmore College for three semesters while also taking courses at the University of California, Los Angeles. Then, she transferred to Stanford University, from where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and Physics. While at Stanford, she also earned a PhD in physics with doing research on how x-rays interacted with space.

In 1978, Ride was one of 8,000 people who answered an ad in the Stanford student newspaper about applying to a space program. In 1978, NASA asked her to join them. At NASA, Ride served as the ground-based capsule communicator for the second and third shuttle flights. She also helped to develop the STS-3 shuttle’s robotic arm, Canadarm.

When Ride was first selected to be the first American woman to go on the Challenger STS-7 flight, the media peppered her with questions such as “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” and “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?” Despite the sexism, Ride answered the questions politely, all the while trying to get the media to focus on her being a qualified astronaut, not just a woman who happened to be heading to space.

Ride later rode on the STS-41-G flight and was training for her third flight (STS-61-M), when the space shuttle disaster occurred. Ride was named to the Rogers Commission, which the President organized to investigate the disaster. Ride also headed a subcommittee for both the Challenger accident, and, later, the Columbia disaster. After she helped discover what went wrong with the Challenger accident, NASA assigned her to their D.C. office where she led NASA’s first strategic planning effort, authored a report titled “NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space” and founded NASA’s Office of Exploration. After Ride’s death, General Donald Kutyna revealed that Ride had provided him with key information about O-rings and how they become stiff at low temperatures. This information later helped identify the cause of the Challenger explosion.

In 1987, Ride left NASA to work for Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control. Two years later, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. From this time until her death on July 23, 2012, from pancreatic cancer, Ride was extremely busy. She led outreach programs for NASA, on boards and she was the president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, which focuses on bringing science programs to young people, with a special focus on girls. She even acted in the season 5 finale of Touched by An Angel. She wrote/co-wrote seven books about space to help children become more interested in science, and Ride was honored with multiple awards, both while she was alive and after her death. She even had a couple of songs written about her, along with mini figurines.

Ride had always been a very private person. While many knew that she had been married to a fellow astronaut, Steve Hawley, for five years, most were surprised to find out that Ride had been gay and had been partnered O’Shaughnessy for twenty-seven years. Ride and O’Shaughnessy were childhood friends who had met over their love of tennis. O’Shaughnessy was a science writer who helped Ride found Sally Ride Science. When it came out that Ride was a lesbian, she became the first-known LGBTQI astronaut.

While Ride might not have been out while she was alive, she still inspired so many people to learn more about science. She was a champion of women’s rights and did all she could to help younger Americans to become enamored of science. In her death, Ride has become an inspiring LGBTQI icon.

To quote O’Shaughnessy of Ride, “She was true to herself, she followed her heart, she worked hard.”

Click here and here to find out more about Sally Ride. To find out more about Tam O’Shaughnessy, read this article. Find out how she grew Sally Ride Science by merging with the University of California San Diego. Sally Ride forged new frontiers all throughout her life, and even with her death, she’s helped others in the LGBTQI community by letting them know that they, too, can reach for the stars.

Halloween in the Time of Treason

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My daughter and I adore Halloween, yet since the 2016 election stole the Presidency from Hillary Clinton and the world has gone completely mad, we’ve ignored this holiday. We used to have so much fun decorating our home and we’d even leave up our decorations long after Halloween ended. But not for the past two years.

Some think Halloween became a holiday when men from the Church in Europe tried to turn the pagans into Christians. This was not an easy task, so at some point, the Church started incorporating aspects of pagan celebrations into Christian holidays and everyday life. Many believe that Halloween was born out of the Celtic holy pagan day of Samhain (pronounced Sow-en).

These pagans believed that Samhain was the dividing day between the lighter months (spring, summer) and the darker months (autumn, winter). They felt the veil between the living and those on the other side was thinnest on Samhain and this festival was meant to honor loved ones who had passed. The pagan altar not only held its usual sacred objects, but it also held favorite items or foods that people brought to honor loved ones who had died.

While I’ve not been in the Halloween spirit the past couple of years, I still adore Halloween movies. One of these movies is meant to be a young adult movie, The Worst Witch, but I still love it. The original movie was made in 1986 and it stars Diana Rigg and Charlotte Rae, who run the witch school, Tim Curry as the school’s Grand Wizard, and Fairuza Balk, as Mildred Hubble, the worst witch at the school.

Over the years, I’ve had a hard time finding the original Worst Witch movie. HBO used to show it around Halloween time, but hasn’t in a while. You can watch it on YouTube, but the footage is dated and grainy. Still, it’s a fun movie. Last year, a remake was made of this movie and you can find it as a television series on Netflix. I’ve watched a few episodes and it’s cute, but it just doesn’t hold my attention the way the original movie did and still does.

I also love Practical Magic. I could watch this movie every day and never tire of it. The book, written by Alice Hoffman, is also wonderful. It’s more complex and includes characters not shown in the movie, but despite this, nothing from the book gets lost in the movie. The same magic that flows through the words also flow through the film.

Alanna Bennett, of Buzzfeed News, recently wrote this wonderful article, “Practical Magic” Is 20 Years Old And Just As Relevant As Ever. Bennett discusses the power gap between men and women, #MeToo, being different, and how women helping each other save one woman from the spirit of an abusive man come “alive.”

Bennett also say she wants “to crawl through my screen and live in the world of Practical Magic.” I’ve wanted to live this story since I read it and when I saw the story being played on screen, I also wanted to crawl into the lives of these amazing women with magical powers.

If all of us women who know that Trump and his sadistic followers, both in his administration and elsewhere, are evil, do you think we can hold hands and use our amazing magic to end this treasonous coup that is destroying us? I am one Wiccan-adjacent woman who is down for the try! Also, vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why Adult Children Divorce Their Parents

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No matter how toxic a parent is, most children love their mothers and fathers. Parents are the people that are supposed to keep their kids safe. Yet, far too often, parents are the reason kids are not safe. Still, kids love their parents.

However, abused kids are almost always confused. Maybe the toxic parent, which can be either mother or father (or, both), is fun sometimes. Occasionally, one or both of the toxic parents are kind. When this happens, kids choose to believe they imagined all the bad stuff and they start thinking everything is fine. But, it never is. Out of the blue comes a toxic rage. Or, a physical beating. Or, maybe a belittling verbal tirade is thrown at a young girl or boy. Or, worse. Sometimes the kids are hurt so badly they require medical attention. But no matter what toxicity is unleashed, these kids wonder what they could have possibly done to deserve such treatment. They’ll remember the good times and wonder what they did to upset their parents. They usually don’t blame their parents. They have no idea that their parents are the ones that are guilty of misbehaving. Kids want to believe their parents are kind and that their parents love them, even when the parents’ actions prove otherwise.

In this article, Dr. Regina Sullivan explains how infant brains crave parental nearness. And babies definitely want to be in their mother’s presence from the moment each baby becomes aware of its mom. A mother’s nearness actually prevents a baby from feeling fear. So, when a mother (and/or, father) turns on the child, confusion reigns. By adolescence, around 80 percent of abused children who have been recognized as having been abused will be diagnosed with major psychiatric illness. This abuse can even change the children’s brain function. Imaging studies have shown that brain areas controlling emotion and cognition are abnormal in people who were abused as young kids.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean the abused children will act out in ways as awful as their parents. But sadly, this is exactly what sometimes happens. And even if the child grows up to be a person who treats others and their own children with love and respect, often these adult children will deal with feelings of insecurity and suffer with depression or eating disorders or PTSD or more.

About a year ago, I was listening to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and the guest was Louie Anderson. They were discussing toxic parents and they talked about how confused they would be because sometimes their parents seemed fine and then, out of the blue, something awful would happen. Before listening to this podcast, I knew that kids were often confused by how their parents treated them, but I had always thought that I was the only idiot for trying to win my parents’ love long after I knew they were deeply hideous people. Hearing Marc and Louie talk about how they remain confused as adult men and weren’t completely sure how they felt about their parents let me know that I hadn’t been as alone as I had thought. Kids who are the target of any kind of abuse are confused and this can cause this much pain.

When I decided to write about this topic, my research first led me to articles about parents being clueless as to why their children wouldn’t have anything to do with them. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry as I thought about how often my parents would let anyone who was still talking to me know that they were completely flummoxed as to why I had cut them off completely.

I could have explained to them that it was a combination of the non-stop beatings, the sexual abuse, the constant verbal harangues, or the mere fact that they were so worthless that they couldn’t even work to keep us all fed and sheltered. I would have been happy to remind them that, despite the awful way they treated me, I wanted to be a family. I begged them to go to therapy so that we could work through our issues together, and all I got for my effort was sarcastic laughter.

I could have gone into detail about how many years I did my best to overlook my mom trying to get my daughter to love her while trying to get my only child to hate me, and despite the pain this caused, I still tried to make things right with my mother. I could have tried to explain that after one night of spectacular horror I made the firm decision that my toxic parents were hurting not only me, but also my daughter, and I had to make the gutting decision to cut my parents out of my life. Of course, when I finally let my parents know I was divorcing them, they didn’t try to change how they treated me. They simply called me “ungrateful” and let me know that I’d proved myself to be the “harlot” they’d always deemed me to be.

I’m sure that there are some kids who have cut off their parents for no good reason, but I suspect these instances are few. This article, and this, and this provide examples of why children finally reach a breaking point and decide it’s better for them to proceed with their lives having no contact with one or more of their parents. And if you, like me, are one of these people, check out this article, which shows there are plenty of good reasons for divorcing your parents. Or, check out this article, which lets you know that it’s okay if you decide to break ties with toxic parents. This article discusses why you might have to let go of bad parents if you want to live your best life.

Advice is offered to parents who have been cut off from their children, as well. This article discusses what the author terms a “silent epidemic,” and this article provides some ideas on how to cope when children have cut you out of their lives. If you are one of these parents, though, I might suggest first finding an excellent therapist and try to figure out what you did that caused such a harsh break. And then go out of your way to try and build a bridge to your children. And if they refuse to reconnect with you, then you’ll just have to find a way to deal with it.

Unlike Sister, Eudora Welty’s main character in the short story, Why I Live at the P.O., I was not forced to go live at the Post Office when I divorced my parents (and later, all of my family). Sister could not find a way to truly leave her Southern roots and family. She just hid out at the Post Office while the toxicity in her family ran rampant.

I managed to escape my Southern soil when I was young. Although, despite my leaving everything behind and showing up in New York City with a month paid on an apartment in Queens and forty dollars in my pocket, I hadn’t yet cut my parents out of my heart. Many more years would pass before I could find the strength to make such a break. I would live in multiple cities, work a couple of careers, have a daughter, and go to many therapists, both good and bad, before I finally found the courage to walk away from two people I loved desperately – two people who made it plain to me from the time I could remember that I wasn’t wanted, yet I still went out of my way to try and please them into loving me – two people who occasionally had some fine moments – two people who I chose to forgive over and over again – two people that I finally realized I had to let go of for my daughter and me to have better lives. Two people who I now wonder why I wasted so much time loving.

America, the Racist

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I can’t begin to blog about the history of racism in America in one posting, but I will begin with this post, with many others to follow. Racism is an issue that has bothered me since I was a very little girl. Even then, I was appalled by the racism I saw in my parents and other White people in the small East Texas town in which I was raised.

Risking even more than the usual beatings from my father, I always spoke up for people of color, but nothing I said ever changed anyone else’s mind. What was even more startling to me was the racism I found when I left East Texas and went to college in Austin. Austin is a liberal city, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in Austin is progressive. The same holds true for the time I spent in New York City, where I moved after college. While I certainly found more people of liberal belief in these two cities than I did in East Texas, I was constantly surprised by the casual racism of far too many White people with whom I interacted.

Racism has been an integral problem in America since colonial times. Before America became its own country, indigenous people of many tribes and nations lived here. Sean P. Harvey tells in Ideas of Race in Early America that race was a concept used to divide people and that “race” encompassed both physical and cultural differences. Before Europe colonized the new country that would become the United States, Europeans didn’t view themselves as being a unified race of White people. Instead, they viewed themselves as being French or Spanish or Portuguese. However, with the discovery of other people, such as indigenous Americans or Black people, be they discovered in Africa or after they were forced to America, “race” took on a new, more complex meaning.

History shows that religion also played a role in how people segregated others from them using race. According to the Bible, God made men of “one blood” and it was not until the Tower of Babel story that people of different colors and backgrounds began to be segregated from each other. Religious leaders were able to use the Bible to not only denote differences amongst people, but also to start putting some people above others.

As Europeans found their way into Asia, the Holy Land, and Muslim territories, they started segregating people as “Christians” and “heathens.” Later, when Queen Elizabeth I colonized Ireland, English Protestants began referring to Catholics as being little better than pagans. By the time Europeans landed in the new country, which for a while encompassed all of North America, they had no problems deciding that the indigenous people were “savages.”

Some Europeans tried to change the way indigenous people lived by doing what they could to sway some of the indigenous to look and act more like Europeans. But few indigenous people were interested in adopting the practices of European, so they continued to live as they once had; only now, they had to deal with the White interlopers and the disease and horror that these people brought with them.

Because indigenous people looked different, spoke different languages, and lived differently than Europeans, the people of North America were diminished by their European conquerors. By the early 1600s, Europeans had no problems pronouncing the indigenous people as being lesser beings and many Europeans, and later Americans, were fine proclaiming that indigenous people must be exterminated.

By the 1800s, some learned men decided that, perhaps, not all indigenous people should be killed. These White men thought that if, somehow, they could teach the indigenous people to speak what the Whites considered a more complex language (such as English or Spanish or Portuguese) then it might be possible for the darker-complexioned people to rise up another level, though certainly not to the level of the White man. Labeling indigenous people as being inferior made it easy for the Europeans (and later, the Americans) to view these people as not being civilized. Because the Whites considered themselves civilized, it only seemed right to them that they should rule the “uncivilized.”

Some men of scholarship bestowed a slightly more benevolent view towards Native Americans. Such a man would be Benjamin Smith Barton, an American botanist and physician. Barton believed that Indians (as indigenous people were now called) might have come from civilization yet unknown to Europeans and Americans, a civilization that was just as complex as those made up of White people. But, over time, this ancient civilization had devolved into what Barton and his peers now saw as a lesser people. President Andrew Jackson used this belief as an argument to get rid of the Native Americans, as it was obvious that their devolution was now permanent and there was nothing to be done but get rid of these people.

Over time, the United States government did their best to exterminate the American Indian. Even President Abraham Lincoln, who most consider to be a decent man because he brought freedom to the Black slaves of his time, was also fine approving the executions of 39 Dakota Sioux warriors during the Dakota War in 1862. And this murder of these Dakota Sioux remain the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

While the order for executions did not stem with Lincoln, but rather with a war commission, Lincoln gave his approval for the warriors’ death. Though, of the 39 Dakota men slated for death, Lincoln commuted one man’s sentence. It should also be noted that the war commission wanted a total of 303 Dakotans killed, but Lincoln commuted most of these sentences, as well. However, had the White man not have spent hundreds of years trying to decimate the indigenous people of the United States, perhaps no Native American would have found themselves being forced to rise up against tyranny.

When the government found itself incapable of killing off Native Americans, they tried even harder to force these people into assimilation. The idea was that if Native Americans received the same education as White Americans, then slowly the indigenous people would stop speaking their native languages and following their individual customs. Starting in the late nineteenth century, the government made it illegal for Native Americans to speak their languages and practice their cultural norms. Traditional religious ceremonies were also banned and young children were sent to Native American boarding schools, where they were forced to learn English, study what other American kids were studying, and attend Christian churches.

Over time, though various laws and enactments by the United States government, Native Americans lost most of the land that they had lived on and worked for their known history. Some indigenous people were moved from their ancestral lands within one state to unknown land in another state. Most Americans were fine with the way that the Native Americans were treated; although, some did try to change the situation, like those involved in the Friends of the Indians movement. But even these people had an ulterior motive, as they were all part of various organized churches whose intent was to “Christianize” the indigenous people.

Additionally, with the White man’s decision to take whatever land he deemed his, with government backing, Native Americans were not only thrown off their land, but many of them died because of White men’s practices. Usurpers went out of their way to destroy bison. In doing so, many Nations could not survive as the bison was integral to their culture.

Whether through war, disease, westward expansion, laws (like that of the Code of Indian Offenses), or assimilation, no indigenous group of people were spared from the White Man’s intent.

A 1928 study, the Meriam Report, showed that United State policies had oppressed Native Americans and had destroyed their cultures and their societies. Because of these, too many Native American lived in poverty and were exploited and discriminated against. Because of this, the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act was passed, restoring some land back to Native Americans and allowing tribes to self-govern. The United States government also invested in healthcare and education for the Native Americans, but far too much damage had been done for this investment to truly alleviate the ills brought against indigenous people.

While things have improved somewhat for Native Americans today, far too many problems still abound, and most of these can be traced back to the incursion of the White man into the indigenous peoples’ worlds. Many Native Americans today are successful, but just as many still suffer the side effects of disease, poverty, alcoholism, and drug abuse. Education can be sparse and employment is seldom full.

Recently, the First Nations Development Institute and Echo Hawk Consulting released deep research that shows how badly Native Americans have been treated. This report goes in detail about the discrimination that still occurs today against Native Americans, showing how other Americans blithely accept negative stereotypes about their fellow Americans, those native to this land, while also revealing what has been lost, and what needs to be done to fix the situation.

It’s nearing the end of 2018 and the United States has a President who is openly racist, a man who mocks all non-White people, including Native Americans. In this CNN opinion piece, Simon Moya-Smith, a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and a culture editor at Indian Country Today, details Trump’s “casual racism” toward Native Americans. Here, listen to WXXI (Rochester, NY Public Media News Source) discuss the many facets of racism that Native Americans face and how to address it. Read one Rosebud Sioux woman’s reflection on how prejudice against Native Americans invades Rapid City. Or, listen to the emotion in these young Native voices as they discuss race and how racism or the policies of the United States government affect them. This country still has a long way to go to atone for the atrocities they perpetrated on the Native Americans and the issues that these people still face today because of colonization and racism.

 

Afghan Women, Poetry, and Bravery

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A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon an article in the New York Times Magazine, entitled “Why Afghan Women Risk Death to Write Poetry.” The article was actually four years old when I found it, but because women in Afghanistan still lack person freedom, I don’t feel like the stories it tells are dated.

The article tells how these women write poems in secret and only share them with other women they trust, using pen names because no one dare risk being associated with their words, using poetry to gently “shout” their pain. We are painted an opening scene in which Ogai Amail waits in her cold, unheated home in Kabul for another poet, Meena Muska, to call her. Unlike other young women, these young Afghan women are calling to read their poetry to each other. They belong to a group called Mirman Baheer and most of these Afghan poets go by pen names, as it would most likely mean a death sentence were they caught writing.

These poets write about sex, love, war, anger, and death. For the most part, they write two-line landays , which are traditional to Afghanistan. In Pashto, a similar word, landai, means “short, poisonous snake.” Considering the women of Mirman Baheer are risking their lives to write poetry representative of their lives, I think the Afghan meaning is more than appropriate.

You can find examples of landays in the Guardian article, “Love, poetry and war: the Afghan women risking all for verse.” Since these landays have been translated into English, they don’t follow the traditional syllabic form, which they did when first written.

May God destroy the Taliban and end their wars.
They’ve made Afghan women into widows and whores.

You sold me to an old man, father
May god destroy your home; I was your daughter

Making love to an old man
Is like fucking a shriveled cornstalk black with mold

When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.

Your eyes aren’t eyes. They’re bees.
I can find no cure for their sting.

I’ll kiss you in the pomegranate garden. Hush!
People will think there’s a goat in the underbrush.

In the Times article, Meena discusses how she lost her fiancée a year prior and now, because of Pashtun law, she must marry one of her fiancée’s bothers. Meena was pulled out of school by her father and now spends her days cooking and cleaning, and in private, writing poems. She divides her conversation between the interviewer and her poet friend, Amail, who is now on the phone with Meena.

Meena says, “I can’t say any poems in front of my brothers,” she said. Love poems would be seen by them as proof of an illicit relationship, for which Meena could be beaten or even killed. “I wish I had the opportunities that girls do in Kabul,” she went on. “I want to write about what’s wrong in my country.”

Both girls are now crying as they read their poems to each other and copy them on whatever paper they can find. Meena reads her poem:

I am the new Rahila.
Record my voice so that when I get killed at least you’ll have something of me.

Amail becomes upset and asks Meena if she wants to also die. She asks this because Rahila was the pen name of a poet named Zarmina. When Zarmina’s poems were discovered, her family assumed she was illicitly involved with a boy, and her brothers beat her and destroyed her poetry. The brothers did not kill Zarmina; she committed suicide. In doing so, “Rahila” became a hero to other Afghan women.

Because Mirman Baheer operates in Kabul, this women’s group has a bit more freedom than those secret group in rural areas, like the Golden Needle. This group formed in Herat, in opposition to the Taliban’s belief that girls/women do not need an education. While sewing, the women of Golden Needle used this secluded time to discuss literature. Their children played outside and would alert the women if some man or a member of the Taliban approached. The women would then begin to sew in silence.

In the Guardian article, the found of Mirman Baheer, Saheera Sharif, says that “literature is a more effective battle for women’s rights than shouting political rallies.”

Sharif, who is not a poet, but a member of the government, says that Mirman Baheer is growing and becoming stronger. However, the group fears that the Taliban becoming stronger, this group might be harmed.

Wanting to know whether Mirman Baheer is still going strong, I did some research. I found a Facebook page that hasn’t been updated since 2011. However, since you have to become friends with the group, it’s possible that I can only see what Mirman Baheer wants me to see.

I found mention of the group on the online magazine, Powered By Girl, but the most recent date of this site’s content is 2014. However, I did find an article written in 2016 on the Dawn website. This article discusses how women in Afghan are still writing in secret. Are they still writing about love, war, sex, and death as we near 2019?

Tupelo Press 30/30 Poetry Project

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Hello. I’ve not updated my site with new blog posts for the past few weeks. During this time, I’ve been in work-related training and on vacation. During the month of September, I won’t be posting blogs, either, as I am part of a group of poets that are posting poems daily to help raise funds for the Tupelo Press literary magazine.

If you love poetry and would like to help, click here and then click the DONATE button in the upper-right corner. You can also read the poems posted daily on this same page. To learn more about the poets participating in the September fundraiser, click this link.

I hope you all have a wonderful September. To those who donate to the Tupelo Press Project, infinite thanks. I’ll resume blogging sometime in October.

 

 

Mermaids, Music, and Tori Amos

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I’ve been entranced by Tori Amos since I found her in the early ‘90s. Tori’s song, “Cornflake Girl,” was in rotation on VH1 and I fell in love with this tiny, redheaded dynamo who let the world know that not only was she a musical prodigy with a style unlike anyone else’s who was willing to spill her truth in all its glory and horror, but that she was also cool with elementals, like fairies and mermaids. Who admits that?

Tori never tried to be anyone other than who she was and because of this, she came to be adored by the oddest group of fans ever, many of whom spend their lives and whatever money they make, traveling around the world to see all of Tori’s concerts. Some of these fans are young millennials; others are older – Gen Jonesers, Gen Xers, some are straight, many are gay, and they all show up with different colored skin and hair!

Ann Powers talks about Tori being unique in her article “Why Tori Amos Connects.” Powers came to know Tori well, as they worked together on the book, Tori Amos: Piece by Piece. Powers says, “I’d see her invoke the four elements many nights before her band would take the stage. This was a focusing ritual, taken up to remind everyone that the process of making music is, metaphorically, part solid, skillful Earth; part responsive, adaptive Water; part imaginative Air; and part passionate Fire. Amos thinks in such deep structural terms, always considering how her compositions and performances come together from the underlying layers outward.”

Independent, the British online newspaper, tells how Tori learned early that she had to create music her way, sing it her way, and mold her career the way she wanted it to be. She is quoted as saying that she had to “fight my artistic corner. But did I make some enemies in this business? Oh yeah, absolutely. But that’s because the boys’ club didn’t get to come in and take over as my producer. I was not going to answer to some… some man that was twice my age was not going to be writing my songs. I wasn’t gonna have it.”

Four years ago, STEREOGUM put out a listing of Tori’s ten best songs, and said of her work: “The early ’90s brought a wealth of change to pop music, and while the spoils of the dynamic shifts may have gone to the flannel-clad misanthropes of Seattle, the longevity and distinction of Tori Amos’ influence is a story almost as unique as her lyrics. Much of the criticism directed at Amos has concerned the very topic of her lyrics and the fantastical whimsy unabashedly embraced by the singer/songwriter since her solo debut, 1992’s Little Earthquakes. And though it’s been argued among fans and critics alike that the ’00s were not especially compelling in terms of Amos’ creative output, the whole of her career has offered much more in the way of what can be accomplished when an artist or musician is able to distance themselves from distraction. Eccentricity is a tricky thing, especially when placed in the context of a culture that prides itself on that very attribute. When everything is quirky, nothing is.”

How did Tori become the unique artist that she is? Born Myra Ellen Amos, Tori was classically trained as a pianist and a singer; although, she started playing, without help, when she was two. Some say that she is a musical prodigy, as she was composing for the piano before age 5. At this age, she won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins (youngest entrant ever), but was kicked out at age 11, for “musical insubordination,” having rebelled against the curriculum, demanding that modern composers, such as The Beatles, be studied, as well as the classical musicians.

Tori was raised by Rev. Amos and his wife, Mary Ellen. Tori never reconciled with her parent’s strict Christian beliefs and found herself gravitating to the teachings of her maternal grandfather, a descendant of the Eastern Cherokee Nation. Her grandfather, Calvin Copeland, taught her a more pantheistic view of religion, where all of life is considered to be divine and where no one god is worshipped, but instead, everything in the material world is given the same respect as one would offer a god.

Despite his conservative Christian beliefs, when Tori was 13, her father agreed to accompany her to a gay bar in Washington, D.C., to see if she could land a job. He was furious that she’d gotten kicked out of the Peabody Institute and demanded that she get a job. So, she got a job in a gay club, where she played popular hits and a lot of show tunes. Whether or not her father was uncomfortable with the close relationships she garnered while working in this bar is not known; but, to Mr. Amos’ credit, he did provide his daughter an avenue to grow her talent in a place that he might not have agreed with, but in a place that he felt would be respectful to his daughter. And, he did this even those he caught more than a little retribution from the people in the congregation where he preached.

In her early 20s, Tori headed out to Los Angeles and tried to put together a band, but after their first album bombed and Tori was largely written off as a subpar rock-chick-bimbo type, she started doing things exactly as she wanted, instead of trying to follow a mainstream path. Because she still had a record deal with Atlantic, Tori found the right people with whom to create a unique sound and in 1992, released her first album, Little Earthquakes.

Earthquakes spoke of Tori’s religious upbringing, her sexual awakening, her struggle to find and establish her identity, and the sexual assault she had survived. Upon first listen, the head honchos at Atlantic were not impressed with Little Earthquakes and demanded that the piano be replaced with guitars. Tori absolutely refused and fought successfully to see Little Earthquakes released with the piano intact. The album was a hit and Tori became a darling of the 90s alternative music scene. To date, she has released a total of fourteen studio albums, all of which remain true to her vision as a musical artist. In 2012, Tori formed her own label, Transmission Galactic, which she plans to use not only for herself, but for other talent as well.

As if she hadn’t accomplished enough, Tori wrote the music for George MacDonald’s, The Light Princess, which premiered at London’s Royal National Theatre in late 2013, where both the musical and its lead actress were nominated for Best Musical and Best Musical Performance at the Evening Standard Award, with the Best Musical Performance going to the show’s lead actress, Rosalie Craig.

In 2006, Tori released A Piano: The Collection, which is an anthology of her work. For those not familiar with Tori Amos’ work, I would suggest buying the collection first and finding out which songs resonate with you the most. Then, you can figure out which albums hold your favs and either purchase or download the entire album, or download a few songs from different albums.

In the booklet that accompanies A Piano: The Collection, you will find out how Tori actually erased the strings on her song, “Yes, Anastasia.” As recounted:

“I’ll never forget the day after we completed a four song session with a 50-piece orchestra at Ocean Way Studios, I went and erased all 50 pieces on all four tracks without telling the record company. I was working with a string arrangement I hadn’t heard before because I was told this was the way the string arranger created, and I would just have to trust. Now I went along with it because of certain advisors on the project and the reputation of the string arranger. This is where I’ve learned to trust my instinct. After the session was over I went next door to the Columbia Bar and Grill. Eric Rosse and the engineer on the string session, John Beverly Jones, were there, and I remember it as clear as the day it happened. They both looked at me, over weak margaritas with extra salt, and asked if I really wanted this, if I really wanted to erase the equivalent of what a medium-sized house in Pomona would cost. Without a doubt, after another lick of salt, I got up, walked next door, and pushed the erase button. It was the most liberating feeling to get rid of something that I felt compromised the songs. I knew if I was willing to do that, I would be okay in life.”

Tori Amos is full-frontal honest in her writing and interviews. She writes lyrics that speak her truth, while also being a no-holds-barred kind of gal when being interviewed. Tori sings about menstruation, sexual assault, religion – both mainstream and otherworldly – queerphobia, sex, death, abuse, war, self-discovery, ageing, all the while finding ways to inject humor or pathos, or just some plain ol’ rock ‘n roll fun! Tori includes historical figures in her songs, using them as catalysts, guardians, inspiration. She’s not afraid to include metaphysical creatures in her work, like selkies, nor is she afraid to add classical touches to her songs, or include sounds of chimes, or electronica, or go full-on piano ballad, where it’s just her and the pianos (yes, plural) she’s straddling!

Also, Tori has figured out how to be both successful and true to who she is and the music she creates. Not only did she erase the strings for “Yes, Anastasia,” but when she got into an argument with Atlantic about how much control she would have over her Under the Pink album, Tori let it be known that she’d burn the tapes if she wasn’t given the control she wanted.

No one messes with Tori.

On January 23, 1997, about a month after her first miscarriage (following a few more miscarriages, Tori later gave birth to a little girl), Tori Amos gave a performance that Lifetime aired, sponsored by an organization she founded, RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network). Of course, my daughter and I were in front of the TV, mesmerized. About fifteen minutes into the performance, I felt the muse teasing me and I grabbed some paper and a pen and started writing. I had no idea what I would write. I just gave myself the freedom to let the words take me where they would, not truly expecting to write a poem that included Jesus, a mermaid, and the Angel Gabriel. But, this is the kind of spell Tori Amos weaves.

Are you a Tori Amos fan?

Women and True Crime

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Two hunters, one cold, deliberate and highly efficient and the other, a strong, athletic man with a wife. One is a serial killer, and the other is a cop.

This is the tagline on IMDb for the British crime drama, The Fall, which takes its name from T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men;” this poem includes the words ‘Falls the shadow,’ along with this well-known ending:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

I find The Fall fascinating in that its lead character is a woman, Stella Gibson, who is a senior investigating officer with the Metropolitan Police in England. She has been dispatched to the Police Service of Northern Ireland, to help with a murder that remains active after 28 days. When Stella realizes that she is searching for a serial killer, she works with local detectives to try and find the man before he kills, again. Stella is a no-nonsense woman who hides the caring she feels for people behind a cold mask of an expression, letting loose only when she decides to bed a man. When her work outshines that of her male police officers, they plot behind her back to bring her down via her sexual dalliances.

I have always been fascinated with crime dramas, both written and televised. I live for shows like Broadchurch, Luther, Marcella, Wallander, The Killing, and Top of the Lake. With the exception of Wallander, all of these shows include a woman playing either one of two main roles or is the lead character.

When I discovered the Investigation Discovery (ID) channel, which broadcasts true-crime stories 24/7, I found a tiny piece of something Nirvana-adjacent. Apparently, I’m not alone. Nicky Manaj, Serena Williams, and Lady Gaga are also hooked on ID. The LA Times ran a story called “Investigation Discovery becomes top cable channel for women with true crime all the time,” where women talk about being “ID addicts.”

ID is the only cable network launched in the past decade to become part of the top-20-rated channels. While cable is currently experiencing a downward trend in viewership, ID has captured a true-crime niche, which should help its parent company, Discovery Communications, remain popular. Discovery Communications also owns the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, and OWN.

While several media networks have gotten caught up in the popularity of crime dramas, with HBO showing The Jinx and Netflix airing Making a Murderer, ID maintains its popularity because it offers a variety of shows that don’t embellish the story. It’s a modern-day throwback to Jack Webb and Dragnet, who proffered, “Just the facts, ma’am. Just the facts.”

Henry Schlieff, who is the Group President of ID, says that the women who watch his channel are busy. They work, they’re mothers, they might be taking care of elderly patients, they don’t have a lot of leisure time. Many watch the ID channel while they’re cleaning or cooking. Because of this, the women appreciate the fact that the shows offered by ID do not include extraneous information or scenes. It’s easier to watch a show, knowing that, at the end of it, you’ll know who done it.

ID is the only channel that, when it gets turned on, it remains on. People who watch ID, the majority of whom are women between the ages of 25 to 54, do not switch to another channel. Per the Nielsen rating group, ID is the only channel that can make this claim.

Check out ID, which includes shows, such as American Monster, Nightmare Next Door, Disappeared, Fear They Neighbor, A Crime to Remember, and so many more. If you’re into crime stories, I suggest you make a snack, pour a glass of your favorite wine, and sit back and enjoy a good murder (and be glad that you’re not part of the story).

So, why are women drawn to true crime dramas in larger numbers than men? On the Stuff Mom Never Told You website, I found a great article, which talks about women’s curiosity about true crime. The article’s author, Cristen Conger, talks about women’s obsession with this topic starting in the 1940s, with the Detective magazine. In 2013, when it was obvious that women still had a passion for this genre of stories, TIME magazine asked whether murder shows are the “new soap operas for women,” mentioning the popularity of the ID channel.

TIME spoke to ID’s Head of Development, Jane Latman, and asked whether a gender gap in crime exists. Latman responded by saying she thinks women enjoy seeing men get their just rewards. After all, more men abuse and kill women vs women harming men, so Latman thinks women are drawn to ID because they can see men get punished. Not to say that women don’t kill or never get punished. They do and ID includes shows, such as Deadly Women, that depict women who kill.

Latman goes on to say, “I think there’s a cathartic journey that the audience goes on that in the end makes you feel somehow safer. It’s counterintuitive, but when the handcuffs are on, justice is served and the perpetrator is behind bars and you see these real people getting on with their lives you kind of feel like ‘okay I can go to bed and I’m not going to check my door ten times.”

Some scholars have warned that a steady diet of true crime can be bad for one’s health, as it could breed anxiety and unfounded panic. The TIME article also talks about how Black women are most at risk for being victims of crime, yet most of the true crime dramas depict both murderers and victims who are White.

TV One did air a show, hosted by S. Epatha Merkerson, called Find Our Missing, which told true stories about Black people that had disappeared, with the hope of the show helping to find them and bring them home to loved ones. I caught the show quite by accident and found it to be very interesting. While writing this blog, I researched the date and air time of the show, as I wanted to include it, but it seems as if it might have been canceled.

While I’ve completed all seasons of The Fall, I’ve read that the show’s creator, Allan Cubitt, is thinking about a future series, in which the Stella Gibson character will be revisited.  We’ll get to see what she’s been up to since we last saw her. I’m delighted. In the meantime, I’ve watched every crime show I can find on Netflix and Amazon, such as Borderliner, Fallet, Retribution, Bosch, Fortitude, and more.

Are you a true-crime addict?

Gale Ann Hurd

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Gale Anne Hurd is an American film producer. Like other women breaking with tradition in various aspects of life and work, Hurd has done so by writing and producing movies and TV shows whose audiences aren’t necessarily female. Or, are they? Hurd produced The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss, all Academy Award-winning movies. Today, she’s a part of the highly successful AMC show, The Walking Dead.

Because I’d never been a fan of Arnold Schwarzenegger, I did not run to see the movie, The Terminator, which came out in 1984. However, two years later, I did go see Aliens, already a big fan of the original movie, Alien. As someone who enjoys watching film credits, I remember seeing the name Gale Anne Hurd listed as a producer at the end of Aliens. For some reason, the name stuck with me and one day at work a few years later, I ran across an article in a business magazine that discussed how Hurd was breaking stereotypes in Hollywood producing movies that do not cater to women.

I already knew that Hurd had produced Aliens, but wanted to know more, so read I the article and found out that she was also responsible for The Terminator and The Abyss. I loved The Abyss and by the time I’d read the article, I’d even watched The Terminator on cable and had to give it props. It was good. Still not a fan of Schwarzenegger, though.

Hurd, who is also called The First Lady of Sci-Fi, got her job by working for Roger Corman at his company, New World Pictures. Corman is well-known for creating, directing, and producing low-budget B movies, like Monster from the Ocean Floor and Apache Woman. Corman helped launch the directing careers of Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, and James Cameron, while also giving Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson their acting breaks. Hurd went to work for Corman as an executive assistant and worked her way up the company in various administrative roles until she got to earn her chops helping to produce some of Corman’s films.

In 1982, Hurd went out on her own and formed Pacific Western Productions, which launched the hits I just mentioned, The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss. In 1998, Hurd was given the Women in Film Crystal Award, which honors women who, through their hard work and attention to excellence, help expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. Between that time and 2012, Hurd won many more awards and continued making all kinds of movies and television shows, as evidenced by her list of credits on IMdb. Hurd would also change the name of her production company to Valhalla Entertainment.

In 2012, Gale Anne Hurd got her well-deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and she launched The Walking Dead, which has become an insanely successful show.

The following year, Hurd was awarded the Laura Ziskin Lifetime Achievement Award from the Athena Film Festival at Barnard College in New York City. This award is given to women in the film industry whose leadership demonstrates vision and courage while setting a standard for other women. This year, Hurd received the Fangoria Lifetime Achievement award for her body of work in the horror and science fiction genres.

When she was starting out as a producer, Hurd was briefly married to James Cameron in the late ‘80s; they worked together on The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss. In the early ‘90s, she had another short-lived marriage to Brian De Palma. This second marriage produced Hurd’s one child, a daughter. I’ve often wondered whether these marriages only lasted a couple of years because it was too hard for Cameron and De Palma to share the spotlight with a woman who was just as successful as they were, without having had the benefit of being a white, straight man in Hollywood. I have no clue why these marriages didn’t last, but it can’t be because Hurd is bad at marriage, because she’s been married to Jonathan Hensleigh, a screenwriter and director, since 1995.

Hurd went on to produce Terminator 2: Judgment Day and The Ghost and the Darkness, and is also responsible for these Academy Award-nominated movies: Armageddon, The Incredible Hulk, Tremors, Æon Flux, The Punisher, Dick, and The Waterdance. This last film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature at the Sundance Film Festival, along with getting both the Audience and Screenplay Awards.

As you know, Hurd produces The Walking Dead and its spin-off, The Talking Dead. What you might not know is that The Walking Dead is AMC’s number-one-rated show and Talking Dead, also produced by Hurd, carries the honor of being the channel’s second-most popular show.

As she continues making well-crafted, popular films and TV shows, Hurd also continues winning awards and serves on several industry-related boards. How does she do it? I suspect talent and intelligence are two of the traits that have enabled her success. Also, being willing to play in sandboxes usually reserved for the strongest of boys has helped. As Gale Anne Hurd once said, “I embrace being a bitch.”

Bitch or no, it seems as if Hurd might be reserving her toughest demeanor for the men with whom she works. Over the years, Hurd has talked about how there were few women in the entertainment business that she could emulate, no matter what kinds of films they were producing. However, while working with Roger Corman, Hurd got a huge break when Corman’s COO, a woman named Barba Boyle, introduced Hurd to James Cameron and then helped them get The Terminator greenlit.

Hurd acknowledges that another woman helped her and so she wants to help other women in the industry become successful, as well. She often gives talks to women who want to be the new Gale Anne Hurd, and she’s honest. She lets other women know that they will have to work hard – probably, harder than their male counterparts, and they will have to keep strong to their ethics and convictions and refuse to be pushed around. And, if they do get pushed around, push back. Fight back. Don’t give up.

Great advice.

Therefore, I couldn’t help but howl when reading about how Hurd’s first ex-husband, James Cameron, who often gives talks about his career, once responded to a question about advice he could give newbies in the industry. He said, “Quit, because the movie business sucks.”

Imagine me making a face, rolling my eyes, and muttering, “Poooor, sad, wittle, wealthy white man, having to put in a wee bit of hard work. Does diddums need his nappy changed, too?”

Hurd acknowledges that she still has to deal with pay inequities, despite her proven track record, but she encourages younger women to follow their dreams. She tells the story of Debra Hill, another women producer, known for her collaboration with John Carpenter and the producer of films, such as Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York and more. Cancer took Hill at the young age of 54, so Hurd tells the women she encourages to do what they want and do it with passion because you never know when your time will be up.

“If something speaks to you, it’s worth doing,” she has said. “You could die tomorrow. I saw that with my friend Debra Hill.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger isn’t the only actor I find nauseating. The same holds true for Jon Voight. Although, I have to give Voight a lot more praise than Schwarzenegger, as Voight is a truly talented actor. However, my disgust for Voight as a regressive man, just like Mr. I’ll Be Back, almost prevented me from watching Showtime’s, Ray Donavan. But, I persisted and I’m glad I did. This show, while often hard to watch because of its violence, offers a look at the darker side of Hollywood and how fixers are always at hand to clean up the stars’ dirty messes, even if the fixers, in this case – Ray Donavan – can’t fix their own broken lives.

One evening, after watching an episode, I wondered whether Gale Anne Hurd was involved in the show. So, I watched the credits and when I saw the word “Ann,” I felt myself getting a little excited, even though I knew Hurd spelled her middle name with an “e”. But, it was still a pleasant surprise to find out that another talented woman, Ann Biderman, is the producer of Ray Donavan. I’ll write about Ms. Biderman in a future blog.

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