EMBRACING THE LAME

Sheila posted today about people who posture when commenting on other people’s blogs. I haven’t experienced that because I don’t have comments, posturing by total strangers would be just one more reason why I don’t want comments. Not that I ever write stuff that people could posture on. Or would that be over? There are people who blog who amaze and awe me with their level of knowledge and their passion for the subjects that they love. Sheila loves American history and Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart and theatre and Ireland and she writes amazingly about all of those things, but what I love best is diary Friday when she shares a diary entry that she wrote when she in her early teens. Her voice then, as now is so much her very own. She has a keen eye for detail and context and a wonderful sense of self.

Today at the end of the post on “posturing commenters” which was really a reference to a post written by another person that I didn’t have time to read because, oh yeah! I’m supposed to be writing, she mentioned that this same guy had brought up the concept of embracing the lame. The lame being those things that you love that society would consider you lame for loving. Society being I’m not sure who exactly, but you know who I’m talking about, it’s basically that same group of people from high school who were the social arbiters of cool, which therefore made them the force that identified what is not cool, e.g. what is lame. They’re the group that James Spader hung out with in those John Hughes films, only now they’re grown up lemmings instead of adolescent ones.

They are the same people that populate parties where all the beautiful people are, parties that in my experience are so completely boring because everyone is so busy being cool they aren’t having any fun. They are so worried about what people are saying about them that they don’t say or do anything real. They are the people who like to make others feel less than so that they might feel better about themselves. They are the Paris Hilton’s of the world dancing on top of the bar with no underwear on because “that’s hot.”

You know who you are.

In any case there are so many things that I love that these people would consider lame, uncool and just plain gauche and if you love stuff like this we should party. And when I say love, I mean LOVE, without irony, because it makes you happy! Not because it’s hip to like old Aerosmith t-shirts now that they sell them at Kitson.

Stuff like:

Disco and all the fabulous polyester fashion that went with it, including roller disco at Flippers!

Kaptain Crunch cereal.

Lava lamps and incense.

Tom Jones who was my first human crush. I would just stand and squeal during his TV variety show when I was a very small child. Before him it was all about Mighty Mouse.

Banana Rama, Boy George, Duran Duran, etc.

Mirrored sunglasses!

Chef Boy-R-Dee spaghettios/Kraft macaroni and cheese and Swanson TV dinners, and this is mostly in theory because I haven’t actually ingested any of these things in a really long time, but the memory makes me really happy.

Pong.

Backgammon.

Shirley Temple – the drink and the movies.

Romance novels – the bodice rippers which feature Fabio type guys on the cover and have the most awesome euphemisms for all kinds of sexual activities. And excellent villains.

Neil Diamond – Hot August Night.

Lynrd Skynrd – Freebird

Cowboys and rodeos

Chinese martial arts movies.

The Renaissance Pleasure Faire

Monopoly, Sorry, Uno, Life

Spirograph

Ice skating competitions with Dick Buttons as the commentator.

Hoola Hoops and slinkys

Mad libs

Polished rocks

Lip smackers roll on lipgloss – favorite flavor? Bubblegum.