Cynthia Samuels

STEP-BY-STEP WITH A WORLD-CLASS SONGWRITER

Carol Bayer Sager (you know, the songwriter*) and AlAnon – in the same blog. It turns out she’s been going to meetings for years — and in this post on fearlessness she describes how it has helped her deal with the fears and phobias that emerged from her tough childhood.

As she quotes the slogans and lessons of this amazing organization, I recognize the power of this support program for those with alcoholics or addicts in their lives. It IS about fearlessness, and about ending the ridiculous urge to control everything — mostly to keep things safe because so much of life with an addict is so chaotic. If the program were not described as one "of attraction, not promotion" I would write lots more about it but respect for the privacy of others and the effectiveness of the low key love and fellowship the program offers demonstrate the wisdom of this non-evangelizing attitude.

Anyone who knows Jenn Satterwaite’s amazing Mommy Needs Coffee knows the power of addiction and of 12 step programs; I’m sure there are dozens of similar blogs that I don’t know about. It’s so funny, too, because so often I’ll see people acting the way that I used to (and still do, in moments of "relapse") and think "boy, they should go to a meeting." Of course, it only works if you choose it on your own – but when it works – boy does it work.

This paragraph is being written later – I actually just came from a meeting. It always amazes me how much pain is gathered in the room of an AlAnon meeting – and how much help people are to one another just be being there. I am a bit shy about writing in specifics but I’m all with Carol Bayer S – It’s a real gift.

*Songs by Carol Bayer Sager include: Blueberry Pie", "My One True Friend Don’t Cry Out Loud, Through the Eyes of Love, Nobody Does It Better That’s What Friends Are For, It’s My Turn

WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY? (PART 2)

I just found the ultimate wise woman post for how to deal with a teenager. Respectfully. Apportion responsibility gradually. Etc. It dealt with something I posted here a couple of days ago about blogging and our kids. And their privacy. And just who owns whose life? Everyone loves Grace Davis anyway, but this was just such a great thing. Take a look.

When I worked at iVillage Robert Schwebel, who is still their resident child psychologist and a wonderful man, told me he sees successful child rearing as "the gradual transfer of power." Doesn’t that make perfect sense? And what Grace did, with such, well, grace, was to transfer, to her daughter, power over her own story and respect for her privacy. I’m just so impressed.

AND THE EMMY GOES TO…

When I was in high school, there was a TV show called EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE. It starred George C. Scott as a social worker with a black female co worker. The show portrayed the pain and injustice that was part of inner city life in the early 60s. Once, and this is the show I remember most of all, the baby of a young black couple was bitten, in its crib, by a rat. Desperate to get the child the a hospital, they were unable to get a cab to stop for them – – cabs didn’t stop for black people.

It had an enormous impact on me and helped to form my political and social perspectives. So even then TV sometimes had a powerful and positive impact. [EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE, by the way, social impact and all, was cancelled after one season. I later learned that the black-white work environment kept the show from being carried on any southern TV stations – which reduced its ratings and knocked it off the air.]

In general, TV somehow seems different now. Even the awards shows are better.

The Emmy Awards used to be kind of trashy and dull. The show tonight isn’t bad, though. Besides, these days, television offers more quality than feature films, as far as I can tell. I love popular culture and can watch plenty that isn’t great without embarassment, but right now there’s so much that’s really amazing. With the power of EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE in 1963, I’ve seen West Wings, Six Feet Unders and Sopranos that take your breath away and acting that does the same. Heartbreaking stories and hilarious ones. Classy characters, righteous outrage transformed into great drama, provocative ideas and just plain fun.

In fact, TV news, where I used to work, has in many cases sunk far below what’s on fictional TV. Sure there’s trash too, but the good stuff is so good, and there’s so much more of it. If the news folks stuck to their guns as well as the drama and comedy producers do, reporters wouldn’t rank so low in public opinion polls.

Is TV better now or do I just watch better shows now? What do you think?

WHOSE LIFE IS IT, ANYWAY?

At BlogHer there was a great debate among the “mommy bloggers” about how much to reveal about one’s children. Much of what was best in my career (as well as, of course, my private life) came from my kids – literally. They’re why I finally wrote a book [for kids.] They’re why I got interested in kids’ books and began writing book reviews for the New York Times and Washington Post and eventually served as early children’s book editor at Amazon. They’re the reason I did some of my best TV pieces – about kids learning to ski, learning disabilities, etc. You get the idea. BUT

Once they were over 7 or so I always asked before I mentioned them in anything I wrote. I kind of felt that it was my gig and they had their own lives. Now this is a problem. Michael Chabon says:

“Telling the truth, when the truth matters most, is almost always a frightening prospect. If a writer doesn’t give away secrets, his own or those of the people he loves; if she doesn’t court disapproval, reproach and general wrath, whether of friends, family, or party apparatchiks; if the writer submits his work to an internal censor long before anyone else can get their hands on it, the result is pallid, inanimate, a lump of earth.

He’s right I think – I can feel myself hanging back when those “other people’s secrets” begin to emerge — and if affects my writing. It’s true even of the most innocent things: something really lovely was said to me this week by one of my kids but it would expose HIM and I can’t do it.
Granted, most moms who blog have far younger kids than my adult sons but it’s an interesting question. Any thoughts?

Whatever we think about this though it gave me an excuse to share one of my favorite Michael Chabon quotes. (of very very many…)

TRY TO REMEMBER — THE FANTASTICKS, JERRY ORBACH, THE INTERNET AND ME

OK – so I should be used to it by now. I’ve been — as I often say, a walking demographic Baby Boomer as long as I can remember. But on this morning after the re-opening of THE FANTASTICKS* – which ran off-Broadway for 42 years, I read "adults 55+ adapting online." Of course they are — sooner or later whatever I’m doing becomes part of a generational wave.

Don’t worry – there IS a connection.

I saw THE FANTASTICKS with my college room mate and her mother during fall vacation of my freshman year. That was 1964 – four years after it opened. At the end, all of 18, I was crying so hard that the woman sitting next to me – probably 25 or s0 – handed me the rose her date must have given her at dinner. I kept it on the wall of my room for years.

El Gallo — the irresistible seducer and originator of the "hurt’ without which "the heart is hollow" — was first played by Jerry Orbach. [hear him sing Try to Remember here.] I met him when I was close to 50 – and told him I’d seen the show when I was 18. His face just changed – not a trace of Lennie Briscoe but a combination of affection, nostalgia and pleasure. We spoke a bit more and then I apologized for approaching him at a reception and acting like a groupie. He replied "You saw the Fantasticks when you were EIGHTEEN! That wasn’t an interruption that was a pleasure." So I guess the story had the same impact on the cast that it had on girls like me. "Please God please," the young girl ("the girl") cries out – "don’t let me be NORMAL!" That was me alright. Please let me be singular – not like the others!

Well it hasn’t turned out that way. Whatever I come to, my peers hit within a year or so. It made me a great talk show producer – never a visionary too far ahead to be relevant, just enough ahead to know what story to do next. I guess that’s why I accommodated to my role as close enough to normal but with an edge — rather than the downtown woman I had once wished to be.

I knew about this headlong Boomer journey online because my older son, in the industry, had read a similar study. Last weekend I told him that I seemed to be getting a lot more online consulting work and his theory was that companies need boomer consultants more because more "civilian" boomers are finally hitting the web. I always knew we would; the tribe that is the baby boom loves to be connected. The web was a perfect home for us. Just like THE FANTASTICKS.

*OK Feminist friends, there’s an element of sexism in this original fairy tale (they’ve rewritten the only really troubling song) but I have chosen to ignore it. It just can’t trump the wonder and poetry.

OF COURSE IT COULDN’T LAST – RANDOM THOUGHTS ON THE DARK SIDE OF THE WEB

I just spent an hour listening to NYT reporter Kurt Eichenwald on a talk show describing the current state of Internet child pornography. It’s just so sad.

I remember as far back as 1998, when I helped launch an Internet safety campaign called America Links Up. We organized teach-ins, a TV program, a family website and a lot of other material to help parents keep their kids safe on line. I, stupidly, thought people were a little overwrought about the whole thing. If you were honest with kids, they could be trusted. [ASIDE: I am, I often observe, a walking demographic… here for the George Lakoff nurturing parent.] How could we deprive them when the Internet was, as John Perry Barlow said, "the most important discovery since fire?"

I was so besotted that I was incorrigible. My boss at iVillage, whom I represented at American Links Up, used to call me a Web rat. But it’s a sign of my eternal naivete that I never thought it would get as bad as it (apparently) is. AND that so many kids would log on when parents weren’t looking and participate. ( If the stories are true, it’s not just toddlers and preteens being exploited, it is also older teens getting sucked in and abused as well. )

We raised our kids in a style very similar to that described by long-time Wired writer Jon Katz, writing as Wired’s Netizen. In 1996 he wrote a kids’ bill of rights on line – linking web rights to responsibilities met. I wonder how that would play just ten years later.

In addition, I still don’t understand – when there are so many Law and Order SVU and a dozens of other programs portraying the dangers of these people – why young people would engage in this stuff to begin with. Either too many kids are too lonely to care or we just aren’t paying enough attention. Parents have to work and if they want decent housing they often have long commutes. They need help.

So what do you think? Is the Web as scary as Eichenwald portrays it? Is some of it hype? How do we keep kids safe and still help them to savor the Internet in all its wonders and opportunities? Holler out some ideas….

KATRINA AND HEZBOLLAH

It’s a wacky day and I have a big meeting this afternoon but I’m haunted by something and I want to share it. For the past two days C-Span (my drug of choice) has been broadcasting from New Orleans. And it’s been sad and scandalous. This is not a political opinion, this is a fact. When you listen to the stories and see how little has been done a year later it’s painful. BUT

What was hardest to hear was that several times – at least three times that I recall – people called in to compare the fast, effective relief DELIVERED BY HEZBOLLAH to bombed out Lebanese to the stunted, slow support they’re receiving down there. Whatever you think of Hezbollah – it’s a sad commentary that Americans have lost so much faith in their government that they make these sorts of comparisons. In a way it reminded me of what the Black Panthers used to do in San Francisco and Oakland — social services, daycare etc. I’m not objectively comparing the two – just what looks like a remarkable strategy. Read this NYT piece too if it’s not already behind that wall of "Extra."

I know there are real problems; I know that there’s been fraud and it’s important to watch out, I know that people like Cooper Munroe and Emily McKhann made, and are still making, an amazing difference. Their Beenthereclearinghouse is a miracle. But on this anniversary it’s something to think about.

HOW THIS BLOG GOT ITS NAME

REPOSTED FROM VOX Aug 14, 2006 at 9:08 PM

“There are two kinds of people,” she once decreed to me emphatically. “One kind, you can tell just by looking at them at what point they congealed into their final selves. It might be a very nice self, but you know you can expect no more surprises from it. Whereas, the other kind keep moving, changing. With these people, you can never say, ‘X stops here,’ or, ‘Now I know all there is to know about Y.’ That doesn’t mean they’re unstable. Ah, no, far from it. They are fluid. They keep moving forward and making new trysts with life, and the motion of it keeps them young. In my opinion, they are the only people who are still alive. You must be constantly on your guard, Justin, against congealing. Don’t be lulled by your youth. Though middle age is the traditional danger point, I suspect that many a fourteen-year-old has congealed during the long history of this world. If you ever feel it coming, you must do something quickly. . . .” GAIL GODWIN, THE FINISHING SCHOOL

Everybody Loves Saturday Night (that’s a song)

REPOSTED FROM VOX 8/12

If you don’t work on the Sabbath, and the Sabbath is Saturday – Saturday night is total catch-up time. Were the kids trying to find us (we don’t answer the phone.) Can we get a dinner made for friends w/a new baby and still get to sleep before 1 am? (probably not) How many emails arrived dealing with work, clients, appointments and other responsibilities? (lots) So it’s close to midnight, the roast chicken and brownies are in the oven, and I’m sooo tired. I just have to wait until the stuff is cooked and cooled down enough to in the fridge and then I can go to bed…

Nothing profund tonight. I’m going back to the kitchen.

INSIDIOUS

REPOSTED FROM VOX 8/10:

I quit smoking in 1992 – right after the elections, just like I promised. Of course it was the 6th or 7th time I’d promised but I actually did it. Put the money away in a jar just like they told me to at Smoke Enders and, since my kids had made me quit, gave each of them a year’s worth when they graduated from college. One on the road with the Grateful Dead; the other went to NYC, where we lived when he was little. They deserved it, living with all that smoke for all the years it too me to quit, throwing whole packs of smokes out our apartment window and generally being real pills until I finally kicked the habit.

Why am I talking about this 14 years later? Because today I really wanted to smoke a cigarette. Amazing. Of course I won’t and it will pass but it’s a shock to remember the desire after all this time. Probably all the terrorism nonsense. Peter Jennings said he started again after 9/11, I remember. But I’m just generally appalled at the power of this drug. It may not capture me again but it’s a powerhouse.