Dang. For all you youngsters, this is how you drop the bass old school. Listen at 1:45 and you'll hear it 7 seconds later. (in blues it's called an offbeat run.) Daaay haay haaaayng. This is from Clapton's new album. My Dad played guitar, had an acoustic. When I showed interest in learning, he taught me the basic chords and handed me an Eric Clapton sheet music book. LOL! That's like sitting a newb at a piano and telling them to play some Bach. I practiced til my fingers bled and learned about 2 songs before i gave up. Wish I wouldve stuck with it. My Dad gave me his acoustic that was older than I was, unfortunately it was stolen. One of my favorite memories of my Dad is him playing the guitar on the porch in South Carolina in the middle of the night when it was too hot for any of us to sleep. And Clapton remains one of the few loves we share.
I can't get the video to embed on this blog, so you'll have to click the link above, it's worth it! This is a public video on facebook that Jaime Primak Sullivan posted to all the mother's who are fighting for peace in the lives of their children. She does a series of videos called #cawfeetawk .
I often feel this way, and love that she made the video, sent it out into the world, and so many responded immediately. I hope to do more projects related to this sentiment soon and hope this can inspire women to talk honestly and support each other...this is what it looks like when a woman Does this instead of Says it.
My daughter
Comment and let me know if you have any more websites or links that relate to this for mothers.
I have a collection of pages at Google Plus for mothers dealing with domestic violence and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Here is the link:
My 16 year old son recently asked me for my perspective on 'this whole crazy feminist thing.'
I gave him the look- the deadstop, eyelock, WhatAreYouSaying? look.
"Wait a second," I told him, "you might need to start over and rephrase that, because I have a whole different understanding here...".
"No, that's what I mean," he said. "There's all these crazy teenage girls on YouTube provoking guys and screaming at them, and making all of these outrageous demands. So I wanted to ask your perspective on this, like what's the deal with feminism?"
For me, this is one of the best kind of moments with my kids. That my teenage son would come to me on purpose and ask my opinion on issues of substance is...well, really it is what I strive for as a parent; an open dialogue, and inquiring young adults.
Even though I haven't seen much of what's going on with young radical feminists on YouTube, I understand immediately what he's getting at: these girls look crazy and they're angry at men (which he is fast becoming).
I cut to the chase.
"Look- men used to own women as property by law, it was legal for men to beat their wives, and women were not allowed to have careers, or even go out on the town for an evening without adequate supervision."
I could see that he hadn't known this history, he took it in and understood it immediately. The conversation led into the right to vote, abortion issues, political under-representation, the ability to make money as a mother with the responsibilities of caring for children, and even what it means to be a man in a reality with these women.
I asked him, "Does this mean that you should feel guilty for being a man? No, you didn't personally do any of this to women. But what does it mean for a man of your generation? What is your response to this?"
He paused at this question. And so did I.
Because this is really the space where we go off and find ourselves a little further in the world.
My kids and I have watched Iron Jawed Angels together, which is grabbing enough as a movie for them to stay interested. It's about Alice Paul's amazing fight to gain the right to vote (suffrage). Not only does it shine a light on how much women have actually Fought for their rights, it left a fantastic impression on me of how smart, strong and determined Alice Paul was.
watch full movie- Iron Jawed Angels
And recently I found the PBS series Makers: Women Who Make America. The first three episodes are on the womens movement, from the 60's until now. They did a really great job of reviewing a huge era. It's exciting, frustrating, and completely thought provoking.
watch full episode- Makers: Episode 1
Makers covers the womens movement in three episodes, and followed with a season 2, that has six more episodes of women makers in different fields.
"Well I'm pretty preoccupied with the idea, 'what are we in this generation gonna provide for future generations to work with?' We have a planet that's shrinking, depending on how you look at it, and what are we gonna leave for them to breathe, what kind of air to breathe, water to drink, and so forth. So when I look at it that way, I say 'where's the hope?' I mean, we have to have hope, otherwise we become acidic.
And to me the hope, maybe this is gonna sound a little politically correct, I'm hopeful that the role women are going to play will increase. Also that the young people that are just coming on...it seems to me that these kids are really interested, because we're going to be passing them the reigns and they want to have something to work with. So they're getting involved, and to me that's where the hope is."
-Robert Redford
From NY Times Talks, full interview of the movie Truth with Cate Blanchett, Mary Mapes, Robert Redford and Dan Rather.At 1:09:42, an audience member asks Robert Redford the question, "...I'm wondering what your take is on what the next generation is bringing us because I think there are a lot of good things that are gonna happen." Robert Redford answers.
“I think the future—and this is just my opinion—but for us to move out of where we are now, and to move to something more sustainable and exciting, I think it will be in the hands of women and young people." -Robert Redford, again answering an audience question at the Sundance Film Festival.
Playboy decided to stop printing pictures of naked women.
Yep.
The first issue of Playboy featured Marilyn Monroe and was not dated because ol' Hugh Hefner wasn't sure it would even sell enough copies to stay afloat. Little did he know...Playboy of course skyrocketed and played a major roll in how women are viewed (literally) in America.
The yin effect of this widely circulated naked female in suggestive pose fantasy feast was that it imprinted the idea that women are fundamentally sexual objects. The yang effect however, was that it also imprinted the idea that women could acknowledge and even display their sexuality openly if they chose to, liberating them from eons of strict social stigma.
We have just witnessed a major indicator that an entire era is coming to an end.
Of course, nudity and sex pictures are free and abundant in the age of the internet, so a magazine with a cost is going to decline....the interesting note here is that when Playboy announced 'no more naked women' for their website, their traffic Quadrupled!
As if that wasn't enough of a post marker in the trail, there is the Pirelli Calendar story.
The Pirelli Calendar is a VIP gift to billionaires and tiger-on-a-gold leash types. It has been printed exclusively for elites for 50 years by the Italian tire company, featuring nude famous models and has an annual unveiling party that has been attended by Presidents of actual countries!
Lastly, for this post anyway, is the smart move by Genius-Model-Actress-Archer and now media institute owner Geena Davis that is currently benefiting American females in media. After having a little girl and watching movies together, Geena Davis noticed there weren't too many girls in shows, and there were even less girls with jobs or girls of color. She started asking people in the entertainment industry about it, and people seemed not to notice, saying 'no, no, there's women roles now.'
So she did some research, and it turned out there was 1 girl on TV to every 5 boys, and usually the girl's job was being eye candy. Being the smart gal that she is, she pragmatically went about opening an institute to research gender in film, and now she takes her research to producers and such and shows them, and they say 'wow, i didn't know that', and she says 'are you willing to create a more realistic show, with like half women and women who do things like in the real world?' and they have been saying yes! Since 2007!!! So if you have noticed more girls and women on TV and movies, Geena Davis definitely deserves some personal credit (and I think some extra mothers day cards).
She's also launched a new film festival where the winners get guaranteed distribution of their movies, and.....if you didn't know this...she also pretty much hand picked Brad Pitt in the role that launched his career.
(I had to throw it in there.)
I think it's safe to say the social media trend is heading towards post-male-fantasy.
post script- Happy Birthday to my Munchkin girl who slept on my lap while I posted this, and this is also for my Sprite girl who said she would like to be President after we talked about our current Secretary of State and our UN Ambassador and our women state representatives; also for my MyMy girl who graduated from college at 17 and is training for the US Air Force.
My son and I call these Cadillac Escalade (EXT) beauties the Escamino.
Escamino
* Coining the phrase: We posted the picture this morning on facebook. We are going to occasionally search and track how far this picture travels the interwebs, so if you enjoy it please share the picture or this blog link!*
See, being a girl who is not into most things about cars (but can appreciate the art in one), when I was at a stoplight with my 12 year old son in the passenger seat, I was looking at an Escalade and I wondered why they made a newer looking version of the El Camino. I asked my son if he knew what an El Camino was...of course he did...he said it's a car with a truckbed. I said "well that one (pointing to the Escalade) is an Escamino. So it's become a running joke.
As a kid I never understood why someone would want a truck attached to their car. Why not get a truck? And I have never found them appealing in appearance (see what I did there?). Pretty much the same for the Escalade, although it's much shinier (see what I did there?). But now I can say at least both have been interesting enough to teach a girl who isn't into cars something about cars (my husband will be proud).
Little did I know until today that Cadillac actually had the first vehicle named the El Camino, and Cheverolet and Cadillac went back and forth for decades on versions of the car/truck.
1954 Cadillac El Camino
The entire history of the Cheverolet El Camino car is an article here, but what I found most interesting was Cadillac (maker of the above Escalade/Escamino) had an El Camino test car first that was a coupe in the 50's! Ok..now I get it...Cadillac's Escalade is not a rip off of Cheverolet's car.
1968 Cheverolet El Camino
El Camino is Spanish for Road, Path, or Journey. The word is used for an actual road, train tracks, stone or forest paths, but also for expressions such as 'halfway' there, 'went their separate ways' and even 'on the way to disaster' or 'to get ahead in life'. Hence, a suitable name for a car.
Cadillac Escalade EXT
The Escalade means "scaling the walls of a fortress". Root words 'scal' as in 'scaling' and 'lade' as in 'ladders' to climb. Wow. I envisioned the prototype of this new shiny version of the car/truck, and a guy in a factory looking at the first one, thinking "What shall we call it? Hmm...it's like a soldier of vehicles...the kind that could climb walls to invade...We shall call it the Escalade."
? what...
I guess it might have been meant more in terms of 'this car can scale a wall if it has to'.
The last interesting bit to my morning of learning about the Escamino was from a website user of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary . When looking up the meaning of Escalade, I found an amusing and informative comment, left by a history and economics teache,r about what brought him to look up the word. He equated the naming of the vehicle as a fortress scaler to the people who drive them as social climbers!! Wow. He might not know he's funny, and I hadn't thought of it like that.
*(I'm sure that could be taken offensively to owners of an Escalade, and I don't intend judgement in this story of learning about Escamino's.)
