Here In Ham-A-Lot

by Thomas M. Pender

While I tend to scoff at people who are fascinated and/or obsessed with “the royals,” I must admit I’m a bit of a Kennedyphile, which pretty much amounts to the same thing in American terms.  It’s not that I’m a fan of the clan, who were simultaneously the most successful and the most cursed family in our nation’s history.  No, “fan” is not the right word.  I guess it’s just amazing to me that so much right and wrong could dwell among and happen to the members of a single family.

As an interested party, I do seek out and absorb all the information I can on John, Bobby, Jackie, Teddy, Joseph and their ginormous family tree.  If there is a movie, book or miniseries about the turbulent lives of these people, I’ll at least give it a look.  Sometimes, this garners me even more interesting facts on the clan . . . and sometimes this is a tremendous waste of time.

Available on DVD, the 1983 TV miniseries Kennedy, starring Martin Sheen as the 35th President, is a good example of a great show, in terms of acting, research and writing, for anyone’s who’s interested.  Today, however, the topic is the more recent (as in 2011) cable miniseries The Kennedys, with Greg Kinear as JFK.

The show does have quite a bit of positive in it: Kinnear does a respectable job as John, taking on the Boston accent, the hair and the furrowed brow.  Barry Pepper, a personal Hollywood favorite of mine, does well as burdened brother Teddy, though for some reason (probably to cover the very un-Bobby twist in Pepper’s nose), this Bobby has quite the distracting proboscis.  Katie Holmes shocked me a bit by doing a decent job as Jackie.  I suppose I figured she wasn’t ready to handle this kind of serious drama, but she did.  In the acting category, the only real eyesore is Tom Wilkinson as corrupt ringleader and patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy.  Wilkinson is a great talent, to be sure, but he looks to be at least one human head taller than the real Joe, about 75 pounds heavier, and he seems to be trying to act the part, rather than just acting it.

The worst element, however, is the writing.  Totaling just eight hours, and attempting to cover 1960-68, with numerous flashbacks going back to the very early 20th Century, every historic scene seems rather rushed.  Compared to the ’83 Kennedy, this gives us less information in twice the airtime.  There also doesn’t seem to be any new information here.  If you know very little about the Kennedy years, you can learn something from this show, but if you were alive and had a television or a newspaper subscription back then, this will just seem like a very fast newsreel.  Since the Kennedys have been so overly researched, analyzed, judged and publicized over the years, I would think that any further attempts to dramatize them would at least have a fresh angle, or at least a few shocking previously-uncovered facts.  This offers none.

The worst element of the worst element is the syrupy-sugary-sweet tying up of loose ends in scenes that could never possibly have taken place, given the characters of these real people.  Jack promising Jackie he’s going to be a better husband, just an hour before he’s killed.  LBJ (who loathed the Kennedys) telling Jackie that the White House won’t be the same without her in it.  By the final episode, I was physically scoffing and rolling my eyes at these fairytale endings.

If you don’t know much about the Kennedy years and family and you’re interested, look into the Sheen show.  Whether you already know something about the clan or are looking to learn, The Kennedys will teach you nothing.

Shoe Department Stereotype Slayers

by Thomas M. Pender

Some facts about myself: 1) I’m not very bold in the “stir up the social hornet’s nest” department, 2) in general, I admire, love and respect women for who they are and what they do, and 3) in general, my own gender tends to embarrass me for its “straight from the cave” practices.  Understanding all of this, I would never report that women have no right to say that men are sloppy – and certainly sloppier than women! – without evidence.

And evidence I have.

I work in a department store, where part of my job is to restore (pun absolutely intended) departments to their original neatness after a full day of customer attacks.  I was initially shocked and appalled by the tornados that had apparently whipped through the ladies’ clothing and shoe departments!  After some observation time, I’ve concluded that this is just the way it is.  I’m guessing that since ladies tend to keep their households up well for familial safety, comfort and health, as well as public scrutiny, they must blow off steam when in public arenas where they know that someone else will have to shoulder the storm.

Being assigned the women’s shoe department, as I am on occasion, is a bit of a gut check, particularly on weekends.  You know what’s waiting for you.  Let me draw you a picture, so you understand the depth of my shock and awe: five aisles, each sandwiched between two stacks of six rows which are initially filled with pairs of ladies’ dress, casual, tennis, deck and other various types of shoes.  Each morning, as the store opens, the shoes are neatly stocked on the shelves.  Each evening, with various levels of horror, an average of half the shoes are strewn about the benches and floor, left where they were set or tossed aside or hurled aside by normally socially-conscious ladies.  If you didn’t know you were dealing with adults, you would swear you walked into a teenager’s bedroom, since you cannot see the floor for the mess spread on it.

To quote Joseph Conrad, “The horror!  The horror!”

In contrast, the men’s shoe department is one of the easiest departments to arrange.  There will be a few pairs of shoes on the floor each night, but only a few.  The most common exercise in men’s shoes is turning the shoes on the shelves from “toes in” to “toes out.”  The men who patronize our store are just as much in the public eye and away from their homes as the women are, yet it’s the ladies we caretakers dread.  Their behavior in the dress, pants and tops departments are not much more impressive.  These women come to shop and they come to litter!

The part that stumps me the most is what must go on early in the day.  I understand that if you walk into a store in which the merchandise is already carpeting the floor, you would not feel inclined to be tidy.  The patrons who come in during the late afternoon and early evening must just feel that it’s acceptable within the walls of our business that people have no respect.  Yet, I continually wonder who these folks are that come into the store first thing, see an orderly area, and figure they’ll just toss around a few things and leave them where they land.  I’d love to witness this first patron one day, just so I can say, “Really?”

There may be other stores and other businesses inside which men throw caution to the wind and behave like Vikings, while the ladies sit with their kit-gloved hands neatly folded in their laps and shake their heads.  I’d be the first to shake my social finger at these men.  Still, this wouldn’t exactly be a “man bites dog” headline.  When the ladies toss caution – and shoes! – aside, this gets my attention.

And ladies, you have been caught.  Take a moment while refraining from criticizing men’s tidiness to look into your full-length mirror at your own habits, inside and outside the home and store.  Admit there are days when “sugar and spice and everything nice” just does not describe you.

Most importantly, if the shoe fits, wear it.  If it doesn’t fit, put the damn thing BACK!!!!