Sally Ride, gay marriage, the Muppets, and Chick-fil-A

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I was saddened when I read that Sally Ride, first American woman in space, passed away a few days ago. She was a role model, certainly; back in 1983, science and engineering were still distinctly woman-unfriendly disciplines. (The Russians had Valentina Tereshkova all those decades ago, but never really closed the gender gap.)

 

 

Astronauts were never really my heroes. They were too bland. When I was a kid in the 1960s, I used to be irritated when all those Gemini missions kept preempting my favorite programs. And then – these guys went into space, and came back, and never had anything interesting to say!

 

 

Then, the other day, I learned that Sally was in a relationship with a woman, Tam O’Shaughnessy, for the last 27 years of her life.

 

 

Now I’m interested.

 

 

The astronaut business was intensely macho. The original astronauts – Mercury, Gemini, Apollo – were mostly test pilots and Air Force hotshots, and most of them were insufferable boors. (My favorite reference text on this subject is Michael Collins’s lovely book “Carrying the Fire,” about his own time as an astronaut. He was the guy who circled the moon back in 1969 while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were traipsing around in the Sea of Tranquility.  He describes the psychological tests, and the physical training, and the sometimes-not-very-friendly sparring between the astronauts.)

 

 

 

Now: imagine being Sally Ride, competing in that macho environment.

 

 

I would have wilted in five seconds under that pressure. In the words of Tony Kushner, daisies would have sprouted out of my ears.

 

 

But Sally made it. She even married (for a few years in the 1980s) one of the other astronauts, Steve Hawley, who seems nice enough.

 

 

But she ended up with Tam O’Shaughnessy, who lived with her for over two decades, and worked with her, and co-authored several books with her, and was with her through her final illness

 

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Bravo to her.

 

 

And what does Tam get?

 

 

Why, nothing! No death benefits. The U. S. Gummint don’t recognize non-traditional relationships.

 

 

(Mitt Romney recently posted a fatuous/obvious comment on Twitter about Sally being a “pioneer.” Here’s how that went:)

 

 

 

Which brings me to Chick-fil-A.

 

 

We don’t have this particular chain in Rhode Island, thank goodness. I say “thank goodness” because Dan Cathy, the company’s CEO, recently made a large donation to an anti-gay-marriage cause, and made some nasty comments to accompany his contribution.

 

 

The Jim Henson Company, which made toys for Chick-fil-A’s kids’ meals, broke with them over this. They made a wonderful statement about it, and they gave the money they’d earned from Chick-fil-A to GLAAD, a gay organization.

 

 

Tee hee!

 

 

And here’s a pictorial version of the victory:

 

 

 

 

All of this means we still have a very long way to go.

 

 

But there’s light on the horizon.

 

 

Maybe.

 

 

(Rest in peace, Sally. Tam: best wishes, and stay strong. Lisa Henson: you go, girl. Dan Cathy of Chick-fil-A: go to hell, rapidly, now.)

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The Muppets

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Partner and I saw the new Muppet movie on Cape Cod at Thanksgiving.  I laughed myself sick several times, and teared up a couple of times.

 

 

I know, I am a doddery old coot.  But listen:

 

 

This is an excellently well-made movie.  The doubters said that modern kids would not like this movie, since they are not familiar with the Muppets.  These doubts were completely put to rest when I heard the children in the theater audience laughing themselves into delirium.   Chris Cooper rolls out a contract on a scroll, and it’s five feet long, and I heard a little boy in the back shriek: “It’s so long!”  Best of all, there’s a musical number performed completely wordlessly by clucking chickens, and Partner and I were laughing, but the little girls behind us were laughing so hard they were in tears.

 

 

There are lots of references that five-year-olds will not get.  The sequence beginning with Kermit’s robot butler serving Tab and New Coke, and ending with Gary Numan’s song “Cars,” is wonderful, and I was bellylaughing through the whole thing.  I got it: the Muppets were very early-1980s.

 

 

But then there's the new material.

 

 

I credit Jason Segel with this wonderful mash-up of nostalgia and cleverness.  He looks like a big human Muppet (as one of the songs in the movie affirms), and – according to sources, including Amy Adams (who plays his girlfriend) in New York Magazine – he is the biggest Muppet fan in existence, and is both the co-executive producer of this masterpiece, and its co-writer.

 

 

I don’t know if he wrote the songs, or collaborated on them, but they too are wonderful.  Kermit sings a sad little song early on in which he invokes the memory of his old Muppet comrades, and it’s lovely.  Jason and his Muppet brother Walter sing a wonderful duet early in the movie that’s reprised later, and it is also wonderful.  The big number - “Am I A Man Or Am I A Muppet?” – is (impossibly) both moving and hysterically funny.

 

 

And when, late in the movie, Kermit sings “Rainbow Connection” from the first movie back in 1979, I dare you not to get a lump in your throat.

 

 

It is a sweet movie.  I can’t tell you more than that.  Both Partner and I left the theater giggling, and nostalgic, and having had a wonderful time.

 

 

I don’t know much about viral advertising, or about social media, but I see a lot of my Internet friends and acquaintances getting excited about this movie.

 

 

See this movie, kids.  It is absolutely worth your time.  It will make you laugh, and make you sentimental, and hopefully you will hear (as we did) some kids shrieking with laughter.

 

 

It will give you hope for the future.

 

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Let the Muppets host the Oscars!

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Eddie Murphy recently decided not to host next year’s Academy Awards ceremony, for reasons which are a little murky, but seem to involve his loyalty to Brett Ratner, the show’s director, who was fired after he got a little frisky in a couple of interviews.  

 

 

I like Eddie Murphy, I suppose; I got a few laughs out of “Bowfinger,” anyway.  Oh, and he was cute as the voice of the donkey in “Shrek,” and the mini-dragon in “Mulan,” although it was sort of the same performance in both movies.  But I was out of the United States during a key period in the 1980s – the period during which “Ghostbusters,” and “Miami Vice” were popular, and during which Joe Piscopo and Eddie Murphy were the new faces of television comedy.  As a result, I am more or less apathetic about Eddie Murphy in general.  Let him go, let him go, God bless him, I say.

 

 

More importantly, however: whatever shall we do for an Academy Awards host?  (You know how strongly I feel about the Oscars.)  We could pray for the wiry Hugh Jackman, or the nimble Neil Patrick Harris, I suppose.  And I hear that Billy Crystal (who must be eighty years old by now) has already been approached, and has mumbled and clicked his agreement through his ill-fitting dentures.

 

 

But I just saw the best idea of all online recently: let the Muppets host the Oscars!

 

 

Think of it!  Kermit cheering and leaping around on Julia Roberts and Emma Stone.  Miss Piggy doing at least one (and maybe all) of the musical numbers (with Doctor Teeth and the Electric Mayhem as backup), and making out (or trying to) with George Clooney.  Statler and Waldorf heckling the performance from the audience.  Fozzie doing comedy relief in tandem with Zach Galifianakis.  We could even have some crossover Muppets: the Count!  Big Bird!  Grover!

 

 

If you don’t agree with me that a touch of Muppet improves almost anything, please to watch this clip from “WWE Raw,” in which lab assistant Beaker gives a wrestler a Secret Energy Drink!

 

 

So let’s dump tired old Billy Crystal, and let him go back to Boca, and give the Muppets a chance.

 

 

Wocka wocka!

 

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