LABELS

I don't like labels.

Actually, I think that most of the time labels are  ignored, confusing, deceptive -- sometimes harmful -- seriously harmful, even poisonous.

The  labels you put on yourself, labels you put on other people, labels that  are used over and over by us, by scientists, and researchers, are  affecting, infecting, eating away our common sense and sensibility.

One of my magazines, "The Week," is open on to page 46, where I've been reading about Adam  Alter's new book, ''Drunk Tank Pink" that laboriously explains how  labels, such as "under-privileged," "working class," "baby boomer," also labels like "black," white," or "Latino," are prejudicing us. The author goes on  and on about experiments which prove how labels affect teachers, and how  that affects-infects their students.

Hey, I agree. But of course, I realize that labels can be helpful -- hey, if you're shopping labels tell  you the price,  warranty, how to clean whatever it is. And help to define whatever it is -- categorize it so you can phone Amazon and they can access it and put it on your credit card, dammit-- and --

Dammit -- to hell with Amazon!

I'm  biting my tongue, I know what labels have done to me -- I'm dying to write a letter to this author, to his  publisher, to the damn magazine that published the damn article -- blurting out what I wrote in one of  my novels, "Karen of Troy"-- yelling, shouting ...
      " DON'T LABEL ME—you're  killing me with your senior citizen, golden age, over the hill  classifications—don't put me in a category and assign to me the  category's limitations, or tell me what prowess, what heart rate, what  weight suits me/ my age/ my frame, or prescribe the yearly checkups,  those marvelous latest newest procedures that reveal my deterioration --  don't box me, bag me, limit me, fence me in with death-doom statistics  -- when you pin your name-tags on my breast and assign me my costume,  and foretell my future, you're stunting my growth, you're killing me."

I read this to my husband, John Cullum, who said, "This will be a good blog post, if you can get a better ending, Em."

Okay. Okay, O K A Y -- there's a value to a label on a bottle
that labeled "Poison," but NO value, nothing helpful, nothing good comes from having any labels stuck on me.

I know from my life, my career, that if I'm labeled, if I let lable-itis get  me -- I'm done, finished. If I want to communicate and create I've  got to go naked -- yes -- naked, un-labeled, in no category, unadorned,  undefined.

Naked? Yep! It's chilly sometimes, and  silly -- you're vulnerable. I can catch a cold, or feel very old, but I can't be me unless I'm free -- I've got to be free.

WONDERFUL WORLD

I came across this film clip. It hit me, touched me.

Every day I'm ruffled, peeved, angry, yes, and pained because of what we -- we the people -- are doing to President Barack Obama -- praising him, putting him down, saying we like him, but he's failing, because all those things he passionately wants to do for us, he can't do.

The Republicans/Tea Partiers (whatever you call them), are committed to stopping him, and they're doing it -- stopping him, fencing him in, making certain that whatever he mentions as urgent will not be helped, or fixed.

Do I think it's race prejudice? Yes, and reverberations from the pre-election days when Romney was buying himself the candidacy, and yes, yes, even as I put Romney down, I sneer at my thoughts that make me one more prejudiced person who's absolutely certain I'm right, the other guys are wrong. 

This clip is from a 2010 benefit for "Friends of the Environment," a group from Abaco, Bahamas, that's been raising money since 1988, to improve the fragile environment of the Abaco Islands.

I never heard of "Friends of the Environment," and we don't get to hear each of the well-known participants, but oh, what marvelous performers -- they lifted me out of my negative feelings -- what they sang continues to ring and sing in my mind and lift me up.

(VIDEO) JOHN CULLUM PLAYS A TRANSVESTITE

Right off the bat Emily wants to know what John thinks of actor, writer, producer Harvey Fierstein.

John describes the reading he did recently, of Fierstein's new play, "Casa Valentina," along with his friends Len Cariou, and John Glover, and reveals that Fierstein is also playing an important role in his own play.


Performing a few lines for Em, it sounds as of it's a project with a future on Broadway.

SHIRLEY MacLAINE

Al Hirschfeld

Dancer, actress, philosopher, author extraordinaire, that's Shirley MacClaine.

How many times have we fallen in love with the characters she's played -- suffered with her, prayed for her, laughed at her and with her?

She doesn't play the leading roles anymore.  Age, time -- becoming over the hill happens to you and me and happens also to famous actresses. --Susan Sarandon, Jane Fonda, Sally Field, and most certainly iy happened to Katherine  Hepburn,

And others -- Goldie Hawn, Melanie Griffith, Faye Dunaway -- hey, you can add to this list quite a few of your favorite  female and male celebrities, because the latest, big-money-making films  usually feature younger generation stars.

I can't help thinking about the remarkably talented Jane Fonda, who can handle so many different roles. Her highly publicized, recently face-lifted self, I think, gets in the way of our accepting what she's playing in current movies. (We're distracted, checking her out, thinking, gee, she looks great -- gee, she's a lot older than she looks.)

So now, rule-breaking Shirley M, age 79, has been joking about her age, and, not subtly, bragging a lot about how many men she's slept with -- and like Jane with her facelift, Shirley is getting herself news alerts, headlines, guest spots. With honest bravado, she's telling the truth, but will it get her jobs?



Dear Shirley MacLaine, with what you did in "Terms of Endearmeant," in "Some Came Running, in "The Apartment,"  in "Postcards from the Edge" .... Yes, oh yes, you are here, you don't to sell us, tell us, brag or promote anything -- we love you, you are here.