Mary Sisney's Blog - Posts Tagged "sean-penn"
Beware The Ides of March: Turning 66 on 3/15/15
A year ago I was celebrating what I called my best birthday since I turned 21. I bragged about all of the gifts I was receiving at 65. In fact, Social Security, Medicare, and my quarterly annuity checks from my one year of teaching at Tufts are the best birthday gifts I have ever received, and I will be able to enjoy them until I die.
Today, when one of my favorite students surprised me with two birthday gifts (an orchid and a $20 gift card from a local bakery), I was trying to remember the second best birthday gift I had ever received. My parents gave me two birthday parties when I was a child, one at eight and the other at twelve, but I was too young to appreciate the parties or gifts, and I gave myself a thirtieth birthday party at my mother and stepfather's home, but I don't remember any of the gifts that I received. In fact, the party is memorable now only because the two black party guests who attended (the other guests were white graduate school friends) were Gloria Watkins (now known as bell hooks) and her then-boyfriend, 1990's novelist Nate Mackey, who was then a USC professor. Since I wasn't one of those upper-middle-class overly indulged children or adults, I didn't get a car at sixteen or the down payment for a home at twenty-five, so it was easy for me to discover my second best birthday present. It was a surprise 51st birthday party given by my graduate students in an African-American literature seminar; I still have some of the gifts that I received at that party. The former student who dropped by my house today was in that class fifteen years ago.
Turning 66 today is not nearly as much fun as turning 65 was last year. In fact, I believe that 65 was my last great birthday. Even if I manage to reach 100, this redlight woman does not expect to be enjoying life at that age. I will either have lost all of my senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste, and mind), or I will be so tired of living and putting up with fools and foolishness that (like Kirk Douglas in a recent one-man stage performance) I'll be shouting at the Grim Reaper to come and get me.
Still, turning 66 on 3/15/15 is interesting. Last year I warned everyone to carry a four-leaf clover, a rabbit's foot, and/or a cross on this day because I am a witch who could become more powerful with all of those sixes. And during the last week, I have had some indications that my witchlike powers are increasing. Four times I managed to conjure people by thinking or talking about them. Last week I mentioned my former neighbor to my mother, and two days later we saw her in the doctor's office. I hadn't seen her in almost twenty years. Then the next day I saw a friend whom I was planning to call. When I was talking to that friend, I mentioned my niece who lives in San Diego, and shortly after I returned home, she called for the first time in weeks. Finally, on Friday, when I was lunching with a former student who is now a friend, we were discussing charitable work, and I mentioned the actor Sean Penn, focusing specifically on his activities in Haiti and during Katrina. That night (which was Friday the 13th), he was on Bill Maher's show, and they mentioned both Haiti and Katrina.
I said last year I was going to enjoy my first year as a golden senior; I did enjoy my birthday gifts, the fruits of my youthful labor, but the Republicans won in November, and my youthful-looking mother's mind continued to crack (black minds do crack if their faces don't), so the year wasn't as much fun as it should have been. This year I'm not expecting to have fun; I'm just going to try not to hurt anybody with my increased power.
Maybe at 66 the wicked witch of the West will become a good witch, or maybe I'll be especially evil this year and wait until I'm 67 to be good. Whatever happens, it should be an interesting year.
Today, when one of my favorite students surprised me with two birthday gifts (an orchid and a $20 gift card from a local bakery), I was trying to remember the second best birthday gift I had ever received. My parents gave me two birthday parties when I was a child, one at eight and the other at twelve, but I was too young to appreciate the parties or gifts, and I gave myself a thirtieth birthday party at my mother and stepfather's home, but I don't remember any of the gifts that I received. In fact, the party is memorable now only because the two black party guests who attended (the other guests were white graduate school friends) were Gloria Watkins (now known as bell hooks) and her then-boyfriend, 1990's novelist Nate Mackey, who was then a USC professor. Since I wasn't one of those upper-middle-class overly indulged children or adults, I didn't get a car at sixteen or the down payment for a home at twenty-five, so it was easy for me to discover my second best birthday present. It was a surprise 51st birthday party given by my graduate students in an African-American literature seminar; I still have some of the gifts that I received at that party. The former student who dropped by my house today was in that class fifteen years ago.
Turning 66 today is not nearly as much fun as turning 65 was last year. In fact, I believe that 65 was my last great birthday. Even if I manage to reach 100, this redlight woman does not expect to be enjoying life at that age. I will either have lost all of my senses (hearing, sight, smell, taste, and mind), or I will be so tired of living and putting up with fools and foolishness that (like Kirk Douglas in a recent one-man stage performance) I'll be shouting at the Grim Reaper to come and get me.
Still, turning 66 on 3/15/15 is interesting. Last year I warned everyone to carry a four-leaf clover, a rabbit's foot, and/or a cross on this day because I am a witch who could become more powerful with all of those sixes. And during the last week, I have had some indications that my witchlike powers are increasing. Four times I managed to conjure people by thinking or talking about them. Last week I mentioned my former neighbor to my mother, and two days later we saw her in the doctor's office. I hadn't seen her in almost twenty years. Then the next day I saw a friend whom I was planning to call. When I was talking to that friend, I mentioned my niece who lives in San Diego, and shortly after I returned home, she called for the first time in weeks. Finally, on Friday, when I was lunching with a former student who is now a friend, we were discussing charitable work, and I mentioned the actor Sean Penn, focusing specifically on his activities in Haiti and during Katrina. That night (which was Friday the 13th), he was on Bill Maher's show, and they mentioned both Haiti and Katrina.
I said last year I was going to enjoy my first year as a golden senior; I did enjoy my birthday gifts, the fruits of my youthful labor, but the Republicans won in November, and my youthful-looking mother's mind continued to crack (black minds do crack if their faces don't), so the year wasn't as much fun as it should have been. This year I'm not expecting to have fun; I'm just going to try not to hurt anybody with my increased power.
Maybe at 66 the wicked witch of the West will become a good witch, or maybe I'll be especially evil this year and wait until I'm 67 to be good. Whatever happens, it should be an interesting year.
Avenatti and Trump: Why the Media Loves Media Whores
After calling out everyone else who was getting on my nerves by creating such bronze rules as "U.S. Streets Are Not Boxing Rings Or Battlefields Rule -- Police officers, stop harassing, attacking, and killing innocent citizens" (I wrote this rule shortly before the BlackLivesMatter movement started), I called out myself at the end of my book THE BRONZE RULE: "Mary Sisney Is a Virtual Celebrity Stalker Rule--People who can't stand fame-hungry spotlight seekers should probably stop subscribing to every issue of PEOPLE, US, and ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY." While I still subscribe to those three pop culture magazines, I no longer watch most of the shows that I was watching when I wrote that book in 2013. I'm too busy keeping track of politics on MSNBC and occasionally CNN to pay attention to "Entertainment Tonight" and "Access Hollywood." And once a reality star moved into the White House, I stopped keeping up with the Kardashians, the Beverly Hills and Atlanta Housewives, and all of the other media whores who let cameras into their homes. Still, I'm enough of a pop culture expert and celebrity stalker (I still read many celebrity memoirs) to recognize media whores when they show up on television. And I've recently spotted a new one--Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti.
I didn't recognize Avenatti's media whore symptoms immediately. Like several MSNBC commentators, I assumed that the previously unknown lawyer was just smartly using Trump's own tactics against him. Trump is a master manipulator of the media. He is in the White House because of the way he used the media decades before he became a candidate. The calm, seemingly more intelligent Avenatti appeared to be beating Trump at his own game. But then he started showing up at events where a lawyer should not appear with his porn star client, and I recognized what was happening. Avenatti was not a clever lawyer helping a female underdog win a case against the most powerful and despicable man in the world; he was a media whore just like the man he was battling. He was using a sex scandal (a favorite media whore strategy) to get himself on television.
Once I understood his condition, it was easy to recognize the Trump-in-lawyer's clothing, the male Gloria Allred's tactics for what they were--media bait. He would file new lawsuits so he could come on television to talk about them, and of course he gave good sound bite. Then the L.A. TIMES wrote a couple of articles about his company's bankruptcy and his betrayal of a partner, and I thought Mr. Avenatti's brief moment in the spotlight had ended. But I forgot how skillful a true media whore is and how much the media loves a good whore (and I don't mean Stormy). Mr. Avenatti breezily dismissed the bad press and kept showing up on what one judge called his "publicity tour." Then Trump and Sessions started separating children from their parents, and the media didn't have much time for the Stormy story. But a true media whore knows how to stay in the spotlight, so the lawyer for a porn star who took hush money suddenly became a "prominent" lawyer willing to help these poor children. When that didn't work, probably because there are actual immigration lawyers whose job it is to help those children, he put out the word that he would help any ICE whistleblowers. Meanwhile a new, or actually old, media whore entered the Stormy/Cohen story. Roseanne's second husband, third-rate comedian and actor Tom Arnold, was on MSNBC Friday, claiming that Cohen was about to flip on Trump. Avenatti was on one MSNBC show commenting, but he looked slightly defeated since he had been pushed into a secondary role by the much more experienced (if less coherent and sane) media whore, Arnold.
As I told a former high school classmate who clearly can't recognize a media whore when she sees one and so was promoting (on Facebook) Avenatti as a good lawyer trying to help the persecuted immigrants, activists use the media to help their causes, and there's nothing wrong with that. Dr. King and the other civil rights activists used the media in the sixties as did the student gun control activists earlier this year. I also appreciate such celebrities as George Clooney, Sean Penn, rapper Common, and singer John Legend, who use their celebrity to draw attention to important causes. But media whores use the causes to draw attention to themselves.
I was disheartened when my brief crush (it turns me on to see a blonde, blue-eyed white man angrily go after bigots), Lawrence O'Donnell, had Avenatti on his show even after I tweeted to him to wake up and spot the media whore. I thought Lawrence was smarter than the average cable news anchor because he despised Trump even before he became a racist candidate. But Lawrence has to worry about his ratings, and media whores bring not only good sound bites but high ratings. That's why as long as there is media, there will be media whores.
As comedian Michelle Wolf pointed out at the White House Correspondents Dinner earlier this year, the media and Trump are like former lovers. The media created the monster that is Trump; they loved him when he was just a clown who could never possibly be President and who gave them unlimited access and high ratings. They fell out of love not only because he did become the incompetent, insane, racist, electoral college President but also because he stopped providing them with access and started attacking them. But the fact that they will still carry his absurd events live shows that they still secretly love him. And his talking to them for several minutes on the White House lawn while the helicopter is waiting shows that he still really loves them too; he's just angry and hurt that they don't love him as much as they once did.
We consumers of the media need to protect ourselves from the media whores and the media who loves them. We need to recognize the whores for what they are and do whatever we can to wake up other media consumers. It sickens me to read comments from female Joy Reid fan club members who can't stand Trump but have a crush on Avenatti. I was also sickened when I saw an Avenatti fan club advertised on Facebook. It had more than 10,000 members. A couple of days later, it had grown to more than 15,000. Remember how many Twitter followers Trump had before he ran for President? We just keep making the same mistakes because we don't think.
#BOYCOTTMEDIAWHORES!
I didn't recognize Avenatti's media whore symptoms immediately. Like several MSNBC commentators, I assumed that the previously unknown lawyer was just smartly using Trump's own tactics against him. Trump is a master manipulator of the media. He is in the White House because of the way he used the media decades before he became a candidate. The calm, seemingly more intelligent Avenatti appeared to be beating Trump at his own game. But then he started showing up at events where a lawyer should not appear with his porn star client, and I recognized what was happening. Avenatti was not a clever lawyer helping a female underdog win a case against the most powerful and despicable man in the world; he was a media whore just like the man he was battling. He was using a sex scandal (a favorite media whore strategy) to get himself on television.
Once I understood his condition, it was easy to recognize the Trump-in-lawyer's clothing, the male Gloria Allred's tactics for what they were--media bait. He would file new lawsuits so he could come on television to talk about them, and of course he gave good sound bite. Then the L.A. TIMES wrote a couple of articles about his company's bankruptcy and his betrayal of a partner, and I thought Mr. Avenatti's brief moment in the spotlight had ended. But I forgot how skillful a true media whore is and how much the media loves a good whore (and I don't mean Stormy). Mr. Avenatti breezily dismissed the bad press and kept showing up on what one judge called his "publicity tour." Then Trump and Sessions started separating children from their parents, and the media didn't have much time for the Stormy story. But a true media whore knows how to stay in the spotlight, so the lawyer for a porn star who took hush money suddenly became a "prominent" lawyer willing to help these poor children. When that didn't work, probably because there are actual immigration lawyers whose job it is to help those children, he put out the word that he would help any ICE whistleblowers. Meanwhile a new, or actually old, media whore entered the Stormy/Cohen story. Roseanne's second husband, third-rate comedian and actor Tom Arnold, was on MSNBC Friday, claiming that Cohen was about to flip on Trump. Avenatti was on one MSNBC show commenting, but he looked slightly defeated since he had been pushed into a secondary role by the much more experienced (if less coherent and sane) media whore, Arnold.
As I told a former high school classmate who clearly can't recognize a media whore when she sees one and so was promoting (on Facebook) Avenatti as a good lawyer trying to help the persecuted immigrants, activists use the media to help their causes, and there's nothing wrong with that. Dr. King and the other civil rights activists used the media in the sixties as did the student gun control activists earlier this year. I also appreciate such celebrities as George Clooney, Sean Penn, rapper Common, and singer John Legend, who use their celebrity to draw attention to important causes. But media whores use the causes to draw attention to themselves.
I was disheartened when my brief crush (it turns me on to see a blonde, blue-eyed white man angrily go after bigots), Lawrence O'Donnell, had Avenatti on his show even after I tweeted to him to wake up and spot the media whore. I thought Lawrence was smarter than the average cable news anchor because he despised Trump even before he became a racist candidate. But Lawrence has to worry about his ratings, and media whores bring not only good sound bites but high ratings. That's why as long as there is media, there will be media whores.
As comedian Michelle Wolf pointed out at the White House Correspondents Dinner earlier this year, the media and Trump are like former lovers. The media created the monster that is Trump; they loved him when he was just a clown who could never possibly be President and who gave them unlimited access and high ratings. They fell out of love not only because he did become the incompetent, insane, racist, electoral college President but also because he stopped providing them with access and started attacking them. But the fact that they will still carry his absurd events live shows that they still secretly love him. And his talking to them for several minutes on the White House lawn while the helicopter is waiting shows that he still really loves them too; he's just angry and hurt that they don't love him as much as they once did.
We consumers of the media need to protect ourselves from the media whores and the media who loves them. We need to recognize the whores for what they are and do whatever we can to wake up other media consumers. It sickens me to read comments from female Joy Reid fan club members who can't stand Trump but have a crush on Avenatti. I was also sickened when I saw an Avenatti fan club advertised on Facebook. It had more than 10,000 members. A couple of days later, it had grown to more than 15,000. Remember how many Twitter followers Trump had before he ran for President? We just keep making the same mistakes because we don't think.
#BOYCOTTMEDIAWHORES!
