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 After watching last night’s Super Bowl advertising, I’m totally sick of sexism in advertising. Specifically, I’m sick of Go Daddy’s 5-year naked girl campaign.
This morning’s reports tout the “success” of Go Daddy commercials at driving website traffic and converting sales. Apparently that the ads were called “lowest of the low” by business experts makes CEO Bob Parsons happy. He makes me want to throw up.
Perhaps I understood using sex to sell brand awareness when Go Daddy wasn’t a household name and folks went to the website to see hot women, certainly, but also to figure out what in the world the company was about. Now that Go Daddy has #1 market share in domain registration, why is their strategy still about acquisition by titillation (Hey, that’s a nice phrase; I’ll have to use it again)? From a business perspective, I’ll bet that the new customers Go Daddy got during the Super Bowl are not long-term, high-volume accounts that could pay for the yearly sexist sporting-event crap-vertising.
In 2010, plenty of women buy domain names, run websites, and pay good money for hosting services. Thankfully plenty of non-neanderthal men do the same, shown by the comments in my Twitterfeed, and all of us should proclaim “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” At least I am. This website is hosted by Go Daddy, and my account expires in 10 days: I will not be renewing it, but rather taking my business to another host that doesn’t test my gag reflex. I’ll also be transferring my domain names to another company, incurring the fees it takes to do so.
In 2010 I just can’t abide by a company that ignores my existence, and blatantly demeans women for sport. If you agree, you can  take your business to one of the myriad ICANN-accredited domain name registrars.
For the other WordPress aficionados, many companies offer WordPress hosting that is easier to use than Go Daddy. Page.ly hosts my other blog- they only offer WordPress hosting – where the customer service is spectacular for an individual like me. WordPress.org also offers a list of hosts with good services; one of them is Go Daddy, but WP provides other recommendations as well.
Come on, everyone. There’s no reason to support the ridiculous assumption that “computer geeks” are motivated by the need to see boobies on the internet. There’s also no reason for evolved, cognizant men to make business decisions motivated by Mr. Happypants. And just for the record, I get my soft-core porn from Cinemax, not from my website host.
Somebody put a fork in me because I’m done: I am officially calling for an embargo on Valentine’s Day and all its associated shenanigans (except for the chocolate that goes on sale the day after, since I haven’t completely lost my mind). This year, I’m not
 Image licensed under Creative Commons by thedesignsuperhero.com sending any cards, or wishing anyone a Happy-Happy, or acknowledging the so-called holiday in any fashion except to encourage others to join me in abstaining. Take that, Cupid.
The origin of Valentine’s Day hoodwinking
First let me remind you, dear reader, that Valentine’s Day is a faux holiday, not commemorating anything that I care to remember. According to Wikipedia, the first association between the martyrs St. Valentine and courtly love may have begun with a poem by Geoffrey Chaucer to celebrate the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia in 1380 or so. Apparently Chaucer was all about the love birds and flowery language, which I must have missed when I read The Canterbury Tales. Another thread of history attributes the “holiday” to Pope Gelasius, who simultaneously declared February 14 St. Valentines Day and outlawed the Roman mating festival called Lupercalia. While I’m not necessarily a fan of a dating “lottery” that involves getting slapped with animal hide, I might prefer random pairings to the concepts of soul mates and being together forever. At least in a lottery situation, there’s a chance I’ll actually get a date.
Dating in February does not equal a date for Valentine’s Day
Right about now I’ll assume you’re thinking, “If she was seeing someone, maybe she’d be a little more sold on Valentine’s Day,” and you would be wrong, wrong, wrong. My previous longish-term relationships have all seen mid-February and have weathered all manner of sentimental notions that Valentine’s Day be filled with hearts and flowers. As it turns out I needn’t have bothered to celebrate with the “Parade of Assholes” in my past. There was the guy to didn’t believe in Valentine’s Day (turns out he was right), but did believe in meeting me at work to pick up a chocolate cake I’d baked for him. You see, I was under the delusion that I’d spend some part of the evening feeding it to him, or at least licking frosting off my own fingertips in his presence. Ha! Then there was the trip to Boston with a would-be suitor which resulted in backed-up traffic, missed dinner reservations, and starting my period so I was extra-crabby during the entire debacle. I did get a stuffed animal and some red cinnamon candy out of the mishegas so all was not lost. I think my high school boyfriend may have come up with a card and a waxy chocolate-flavored heart that got thrown in the trash. The point is, whether romance is dead, or pressure to conform leads to romantic failure, Valentine’s Day a deux can end up being a dud.
 image licensed by Creative Commons 2.0 via Flickr In spite of my pitiful showing I have had romantic moments, in the middle of Autumn even. Once, the boyfriend of the ill-fated Boston trip had the notion to draw me a bath, light candles, and order me dinner one Friday night when I had to work until 8PM. The man for whom I baked a cake sent me coffee and bagels at work one morning. The fact that I wasn’t there to receive them that day is another issue entirely, but he did get credit for thoughtfulness. And my most wonderful February 14 moment occurred at a martini bar in Hollywood with a bunch of girlfriends. Some were attached, some were not, be we all decided to toast each other that night rather than focusing on some guy. We had a total blast, so much so that the staff repeatedly asked us to keep it down. Apparently our raucous laughter, conviviality and celebration was bothering all the sappy couples in the dining room. Pfft! I believe that a table of happy, drunk, single women spends more money than 5 couples monitoring their intake so they don’t feel bloated, lose their erection, or fall asleep during the sex they’re obliged to have after dinner. And drunken women tip better than some dude who spent all his money trying to impress his girlfriend with flowers and candy and fancy wine when he usually drinks Bud Light.
Romance is fleeting, but love is here to stay. At least it should be.
What I’m saying is, don’t wait for some greeting card company to tell you when or how to feel good about your beloved. And if you’re between mates, don’t let some marketing campaign make you feel like that kid in elementary school who didn’t get any conversation hearts from his classmates. It’s arbitrary and artificial. If you don’t believe me, note that even White Castle offers reservations and candlelight for you and your valentine. I can’t imagine what’s more enchanting: the smell wafting through the restaurant during your dinner, or that emanating from your bottom once the meal is over.
 While riding the subway one day, a woman got into the car carrying a 176-count box of Pampers. According to the carton, it was their largest “everday” size. Apparently there exists another, larger “special occasion” box for some sad mother to lug through a retail outlet, then wedge into a car or maneuver onto a public conveyance. The idea that more than 176 diapers can be purchased at once, and contemplating a baby-pooping situation involving the rapid consumption of said diapers almost sent me into shock.
The mega box of diapers is why I’m not having children.
Okay, there are many more reasons I think motherhood is not in the cards, not the least of which is the fact that I’m 37 and single. Make that chronically single, and I can’t even imagine a scenario where I keep a relationship long enough to cultivate a Chia Pet, let alone gestate another human. Then there are pregnancy hemorrhoids, dirty diapers – over 176 of them – and potty training. I don’t mean to focus on the scatological, but you have to handle a lot of shit to be a mom, and I’m not sure I’m ready for it. And with having a baby comes the possibility of having your lady bits sliced open like a pig at a Carolina barbecue. Childbirth is nasty business; the only reason I can think for a woman to voluntarily endure it more than once is that she made a mistake with the first kid and needed a mulligan.
When labor and delivery are over, then comes the raising and disciplining of the offspring. I’m a big fan of discipline, having been spanked a few times in my youth and turning out all the better for it. But now, with all we’ve learned about pop psychology from Oprah and Dr. Phil, apparently you can’t spank your own kid for fear of going to prison for abuse. I’m not saying you should haul off and whale on your kids, but you ought to be allowed to tap a few bottoms without someone calling 9-1-1. Some adults actually need a spanking every now and then too, like Rush Limbaugh and any number of conservative blow-hards; they need to feel what its like to feel a little hurt, embarrassed, and bewildered like a toddler after his fanny gets slapped.
But back to my original point, which is that I think parenting would suck for me. Don’t get me wrong: I love babies. My cousin’s youngest son Trevor is my favorite baby right now. At Thanksgiving and Christmas, I held him and fed him and he was the best in the world. He’s got the cutest dimples when he smiles and the sweetest brown eyes you’ve ever seen. And he grips onto your finger when you talk and looks right at you…Wait: didn’t I used to talk like this about men? Could be that’s why babies are so awesome: they actually pay attention to you, unlike that jackass date from last night that didn’t even offer to pay for dinner. Plus baby Trevor gets to go back to his parents for whining, crying and anything else that works my nerves, which is a policy I can get behind.
The truth is, I have absolutely zero patience. I’m the person that uses the self check-out lane whenever possible because I’d rather scan my own groceries than wait for some disinterested knucklehead to do it for me. I’m also the one who walks up to anything marked “out of order” and tries it out anyway, just to avoid standing in line. Think my lack of social equanimity has something to do with why I’m still single? Maybe. And if I can’t stand the company of an adult male for more than a few months, what chance would I have with a toddler? I’m certainly not cut out for handling a two-year-old’s temper tantrums, or answering a never-ending series of “why, Mommy, why?” without losing my stuff. Since I know that about myself, it pretty much seems pointless to bring another person into the world hoping they won’t cause me a heart attack.
I’ve got some news for the people who tell me that I’ll change one day, or when I meet the right man, or that having kids changes you. Maybe motherhood does change you, when you become a mother in your 20s. But guess what? Women walking the gangplank towards 40 don’t change that much, unless it’s a hairstyle or a job. If you hate your hair, you can put a hat on it, and a crappy job seems less so when payday rolls around. But possibly raising a douchebag and sending him or her out into the world is something I’d never be able to tolerate. That, and waiting for them to grow up and move out of the house.
As generally happens when a celebrity dies suddenly, the vultures (read: tabloid speculators) have begun circling over Brittany Murphy (again, the right way to spell her name, look it up). The latest fodder for gossip is her use of prescription drugs, among them Klonopin, Atavan, Fluoxetine, Vicoprofen and Propranolol. When you rattle off a bunch of pharmaceutical names in a row like that, it seems rather ominous. Why was she taking all those? Did she overdose? Did Brittany’s doctors cause her death? What nefarious scheme was afoot at Casa de Murphy and Monjack (her husband) to support the continued abuse of narcotics? Before we get off on a tangent, I’m gonna make this drama simpler, if not less dramatic.
Hollywood is a lot like the rest of the world, though writ large for everyone to see. Whatever actors and musicians and non-specified celebrities do pretty much mirrors what we “regular people” do in our own lives. We all hide what we don’t want seen. The average person hides medicines in a drawer when company comes, safe from the prying eyes of those who just must peek in the medicine cabinet. You know you’ve done it. Or we see a shrink in another town so nobody we know will see us going in or coming out. Or we travel under pseudonyms and have or assistants fetch our prescriptions so TMZ doesn’t find out what we’re taking. Or we just lie and keep secrets and hope certain things about ourselves never come up. No matter who’s doing it, or how much money, power and influence they wield, it’s still subterfuge. And it may be killing us.
Here’s what I think about poor Ms. Murphy. She had diabetes, which is “documented”. She suffered from some kind of body image issue, which is sadly de rigueur among young starlets. She probably had bipolar disorder, according to the anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications in her possession. I’m a little fuzzy on the rest of her condition…perhaps she had a heart problem, and/or an addiction to pain medication. Or she had surgery and needed narcotics from a few different doctors so the tabloids wouldn’t report it as addition. I would wager that Brittany needed some time on “the inside”, not drug rehab, but some kind of psychiatric facility. Of course going to rehab is like going on vacation in LA, so much so that we watch people do it on TV shows. But checking into a mental ward is verboten, just ask Mischa Barton, whose 5150 psych hold earlier this year was blamed on some bad dental work. Uh-huh, blame it on the No-No-No-No-No-Novocain.
At this most wonderful time of the year, we should stop judging people, least of all those about whom we know so little. We should also start fessing up about our own shortcomings, likely a source of our criticism of others. Celebrities are easy targets because they seem so untouchable, so “perfect” that we have a hard time believing they could have real problems. Stand back because I’m getting on my soapbox again. Many people criticized Maia Campbell’s erratic behavior caught on tape this year. Message boards said things like “she’s a crack whore” and called her terrible names. The truth is, Campbell – like her late mother, author Bebe Moore Campbell – has bipolar disorder and was very much out of treatment this year when a sick-minded man exploited her condition on videotape and on the Internet. The truth is also that Maia was on drugs, and she was selling her body to numb the pain of her own disease, or of her mother’s death, or whatever human emotion was so unbearable it needed to disappear, but quick. Ready for some more truth: you’ve been there too, where it hurts so badly you don’t think you can make it another second. Fortunately, nobody was there with a camera, or a videotape, or a recorder poised to make money off your pain.
By the way, what secrets would we find in your medicine cabinet?
 This diaper makes me look fat. And my HAIR... Its hard to be a girl these days, harder than it is for a pimp. If I was a pre-teen now and I had to look at images of women in the media, I’m not sure how I’d turn out. So many things work against female self-esteem it’s a wonder the US produces any well-adjusted women. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, or at least since the last time I saw my goddaughter. Early in the AM on the day after Thanksgiving, or some morning that weekend, my goddaughter got into my bed and woke me up. She’s 11-years-old, but hasn’t quite gotten to that ‘tween “don’t touch me” phase, so she kind of flops all over you. Its quite sweet once you’re awake, but I digress. We chatted briefly until she touched my hair and said something like “yuck” or “ewww,” after which she decreed that my hair was nicer before (in braided extensions, or straight and shoulder length). Huh.
Now I’ll admit that at such an early hour, the Afro was not its most spherical and needed desperately to be picked. Usually I take umbrage at referring to my hair in pejorative terms, since its healthy and growing and has neat-o little ringlets. In this particular case, I couldn’t argue with my goddaughter since she doesn’t really know what naturally-textured hair feels like. Her mother, aunt and grandmother wear relaxers. She goes to a multi-ethnic school with kids of all cultures and hair types. Even her brother and father wear closely-cropped hair, so she has virtually no occasion to encounter Black hair as it grows from the scalp. Still, her reaction to the feel of my hair really hurt, but not because I took it personally. In judging my kinks, she was also judging herself, and I wanted so much more for her.
Why do girls and women hate ourselves so much? When did it all go so horribly awry? I blame Hollywood, and by “Hollywood” I mean the entertainment industry. When I heard of the tragic death of Brittney Murphy (yes, that’s how you spell her name) this week, my first thought was: anorexia-induced heart failure. She may have had H1N1, and she did suffer from Type 2 Diabetes. But you can’t deny her dramatic weight loss after Girl, Interrupted, which is weight she really couldn’t afford to lose. A little working out, sure, and some toning up for definition. But pointy shoulder blades, protruding elbow joints and thighs the same size as your calves don’t say, “I’m eating healthy now,” they say “I have an eating disorder.”
The problem is that we don’t talk about eating disorders among actresses anymore because, apparently, a star’s weight is nobody’s business. Except that when you prance your emaciated body around on TV, and you say you look that way because of “diet and Pilates”, you make it everyone’s business. I have lots of friends who act, and all of the have been told by agents and casting directors that they need to lose weight in order to get work. And they’re not voluptuously Size 16-and-Sexy like me! They’re Size 6 women, and men with 32-inch waists, who work out and eat right and apparently need to start starving or get lipo for career advancement. Have you ever seen a TV actor up close? A lot of them are good-looking, but I’ve never seen so many sunken eye-sockets in my life. They all look like lollipops, big heads on abnormally-small bodies. Like it hurts to sit down because they’re so bony. But on screen they look beautiful, and aspirational, and have completely normal results that can only be achieved through abnormal means. There’s no way I’m gonna raise a girl to believe that heroin-chic is natural, or that Tyra Banks’ “real” hair just comes out of her head all straight like that. Imagine the disappointment when their body and hair and life don’t turn out like the people on TV?
Unfortunately, I don’t think we have to imagine a generation of women raised hating themselves because that generation is here and they’re on reality TV. The onslaught of stupid women doing stupid things on TV is astounding to me, but not as incredible as the fact that so-called “women’s” networks are responsible for publicizing the worst of our sex. I’m going to single out Bad Girls’ Club as the worst of the culprits, since it glorifies the insipid behavior the show is supposed to prevent. Here’s an idea: find the most self-centered, materialistic, self-hating 20-something women who are prone to violence, and put them in a house together with liquor, cameras, and shit-else to do. Of course, they’ll all magically learn to control their tempers, start sharing make-up tips and doing each others’ hair, right? And then they’ll wax eloquent about their behavior, making profound confessions about becoming productive people and having healthy relationships. Yeah, I don’t think so. At least Celebrity Rehab has a clinician. Oxygen just has limos and admission to the VIP section of some bar/lounge/club on the Sunset Strip which, in my experience, is far more conducive to self-awareness than some time on the therapy couch. At this point, I don’t know what’s worse: a TV network for women pretending to help anyone with this farce, when all they’re no better than Joe Francis and Girls Gone Wild; a cadre of young women willingly acting a damn fool on international video for outcomes that remain, at least to me, undetermined; or the viewing public of women (and men) who promote this kind of behavior by watching, and tweeting, and blogging about how funny the show is.
Maybe I’m missing something, or I’m a killjoy, or there’s a 65-year-old church woman trapped in my hot 30-something body. Does anybody else see what’s wrong?
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Please, please, can I go?
Been there, done that, got the schwag.
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