Letterman Does Yankees

A few Dave Letterman jokes about you-know-who, taken from the MLB site:

“Long season, brutal season, 162 games, 40 or 50 playoff games, and then the best of 30 in the World Series. Finally, now, they get a well-deserved rest, and then on Monday they report to Spring Training.“

“The Yankees, your world champion Yankees, they have to make a big decision in the offseason — are they going to keep Kate Hudson or sign Drew Barrymore?”

Letterman described the span from 2004-06 when {Andy} Pettitte interrupted his Yankees career to play with the Astros by saying he “left for three years to go run a Dairy Queen or something.”

Jeter, Pettite and Posada were on the show, and at the end, Letterman brought out World Series Most Valuable Player Hideki Matsui, who carried with him the World Series trophy.

That, of course, is because Matsui doesn’t speak enough English to fully participate.This allows me another opportunity to point out what’s rapidly becoming one of my pet peeves about the way Major League Baseball operates: I think every non-English speaking player should, from the moment they arrive, be given vigorous English lessons by a private tutor. It’s ridiculous that Matsui couldn’t talk on the Letterman show. It’s a deprivation to the fans that we had to hear his speech, upon being named MVP, from an interpreter (who knows what he’s saying?–only half kidding).

Lest this sound like an English-only conservative rant, I’m also in favor of all non-Spanish speaking members of the League, from owners to players all the way down to the ball dudes, learning Spanish. It would enrich their lives–and perhaps even ours– immeasurably.

To end on a humorous note, though, here’s another Letterman zinger:

“I’m going to be hosting for eight commercials, and then we bring in Mariano Rivera.”

Yankees Theme Song

I didn’t even know one existed!

Told Ya!

How ’bout them Yankees, huh?

As one of the guys said, “All’s well with the world.”

My Life Among The Doozies

The following is excerpt from an essay that appears in the just-published anthology,  My Baby Rides the Short Bus. I chose to publish it anonymously so as not to name the organization I write about here. It’s a great organization that does good and important work, and I do not mean to imply otherwise, nor did I write this to trash them. Rather, I wrote it to illuminate the experience of feeling isolated when one is less conventional than the people one might find oneself among as a result of particular life circumstances–the overall theme of the anthology. The book just arrived in my mailbox, and it’s extremely wonderful–buy it.

It was my first Doozy Conference.

Oops—I guess I’d better back up and provide a little background.

My son David, now forty-two, was born with a neurological condition requiring brain surgery—the first when he was ten days old, and several more times since. Surgical scar tissue led to intermittent grand mal seizures that began when he was eight. He also had learning disabilities that were diagnosed as laziness until 1975, when the public school system discovered disability–by which time David was two years from graduation.

Doozy is the private word we used when my kids were little to refer to David’s condition. I invented it when I realized that David’s younger sister Sara was having a hard time talking about his condition, especially when other people, upon learning of it, reacted with alarm. Whenever I referred to “David’s Doozy,” the kids cracked up, releasing some of the tension and fear that surrounded his condition.

I’m resurrecting the term now so I can write about the Doozy Association without (a) publicly trashing an organization that does a lot of good work, and (b) insulting or injuring the individual people who do that good work. After much thought, I decided that the only way for me to be honest about my experience with the Doozy Association is to render it (I hope) unrecognizable. For the same reason I’m writing anonymously, and all names have been changed, including those of my children.

So—to get back to my first Doozy Conference. David was already a man in his early 20s when I discovered the Association, after moving from the East Coast to the West. Although Doozy had been treated surgically for some fifty years, there were precious few resources for those who had it. Back East a small group had formed around one of the doctors specializing in Doozy; they sponsored events to raise research money, but that was the extent of their activities. There were no support or educational groups, and until I came West I hadn’t known anyone with Doozy, except for two families I hunted down and met briefly when David was a baby. There was then no Internet in those days where one might find hundreds of others in the same situation. Few people even knew what Doozy was, and so I’d bumbled around, confused and ignorant through the years of David’s childhood. If someone had asked me what kind of help or information I needed, I never could have imagined the resources available for people with disabilities today. Isolation, confusion and fear were par for the Doozy course. This was just the way life with Doozy—or any disability– was back then. I’m talking 1965- 80s, a time when people didn’t speak openly about a lot of topics, and about disability not at all. There was no such thing as early childhood intervention, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the IDEA and IEP. Accommodations for special needs were not only non-existent, but the words hadn’t even been used together yet. People with disabilities were usually referred to as handicapped, retarded or crippled. David’s doozy was known as a birth defect. Who can be blamed for not wanting to engage in  conversations about defective babies?

The Disability Rights Movement had its early origins in the 60s, but it wasn’t until the 80s that parents of children with disabilities banded together to demand and implement change. By then David was nearly an adult; in his last two years of high school he received special ed—which at that time meant putting him in a classroom for one period a day with kids who covered a wide spectrum, from dyslexia to cerebral palsy and everything in between. It wasn’t much help, especially since David carried some pretty heavy baggage after 12 years of dysfunctional education. He was born too soon, and the Disability Rights Movement came along too late, for him to benefit, at least educationally.  Thus, the discovery of a group that advocated for people with Doozy was a major thrill for us. Our whole family—David, his sister Sara and I–had dinner with the founders of the organization.  We were tremendously excited about going to our first conference.

After registering at the hotel and settling in, my kids and I went down to the welcoming reception. Buffet tables were set up in a large ballroom. Adults and kids milled about nibbling on cheese and crackers. They were expecting about 200 people to attend; today, with attendance averaging 500, that earlier number looks puny, but it was the most registrants they’d ever had. The Association was over ten years old, but it was still quite small and locally centered, overseen primarily by its two founding families. I’d been impressed with their professionalism, as well as the quality of their newsletter and other printed materials, and the connections they’d managed to make with doctors and specialists in the Doozy network.

I entered the ballroom and got a glass of wine. The Executive Director spotted me and came over. She was a masterful hostess who knew how to make things happen. After a few minutes of chatting she introduced me to someone else, and once the conversation took off she slipped away. I liked how she watched out for me: any time she saw me standing alone and lost, she’d come back and drag me over to another new person, always staying long enough to start the conversational ball rolling. In this way I managed to meet a fair number of people whose lives had been touched by Doozy in one way or another.

Most of the parents were younger than I, and most of their kids who had Doozy were infants and toddlers. Because Doozy treatment was relatively new, only a small contingent of people David’s age were at the conference—or on this earth. Until around 1955, babies born with Doozy either got over it naturally, or died. It turned out that David, born in 1965, was a Doozy pioneer.

And I was a pioneer Doozy mother, something I’d learned at my first meeting. When I told my story to a dozen parents, they were in awe, and told me I was remarkable for having survived Doozy almost entirely alone. At first this surprised me: all these years I’d thought of myself more as victim than as remarkable or pioneering. Nor had I seen the big picture—the historical, social and cultural influences surrounding my circumstances. As reality sank in, my sense of myself as a mother began to shift. Where I’d previously been ashamed and embarrassed to talk about Doozy, I slowly developed a matter-of-fact attitude tinged with pride. This transformtion didn’t happen in a day, but over the course of several years. The way I talk about Doozy now is light years away from my halting attempts as a young mother.  Insensitive remarks that once hurt now rouse me to anger and contempt for those who make them.

Midway through the reception, after I’d had two glasses of wine and enough time to calm down, I took a look around at the people with whom I’d be interacting for the next two days. The shock of what I saw hit me all at once: every single person in the room was white, and apparently middle-class. Though this was a superficial glimpse, the vibe was unmistakable. Almost everyone was from a background I knew well, one that I’d pejoratively labeled “straight” after walking out of my suburban home back in 1969 wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and jeans, my two little munchkins in tow. For awhile we lived on a commune made up of single mothers and kids. The next year we lived on a mountain dotted with teepees where we worked a communal garden. I went out with men and women of all ethnicities from all walks of life. The kids learned origami, guitar, and Grateful Dead lyrics from the friends and lovers who passed through our home, sometimes staying for dinner, sometimes for three weeks. For awhile our house was a way station for women in flight from abusive men, or for hippie mothers desperate to leave the city. They stayed until they found their own places, all the kids camping out in the same bedroom. In other words, neither I nor my children had led a typical middle-class life. And though they were choosing more conventional lives as adults, I was still out there seeking adventure, following my instincts to new experiences with offbeat people.

Finding myself alone among  “the straights” threw me into panic mode. What if someone asked what I did for a living (phone sex)?  How would I answer questions about my marital status (divorced longer than I’d been married) or sexual orientation (bi)? What if my kids innocently let on I was a writer, and they asked me what if anything I’d published (mostly erotica)? Among these well-dressed, well-heeled people who seemed to share a set of moral assumptions, I would have to be very, very careful. The list of data about myself that I’d have to hide was long. It included poverty, maternal conflicts, and a scandalous past highlighted by the four years I went AWOL and the kids lived with their father….

To read the remainder of this, you’ll have to take a look at the book!

Book Release Reading for the Groundbreaking Anthology

My Baby Rides the Short Bus

Saturday, November 14th, 2009, 7 p.m.

Free

at Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen Street (between Rivington and Stanton), Lower East Side, Manhattan.

Featuring readings by contributors and New York City writers Ayun Halliday (Dirty Sugar Cookies) Jennifer Silverman, Sabrina Chapadjiev (Live Through This), and Sharis Ingram.

In lives where there is a new diagnosis or drama every day, the stories in My Baby Rides the Short Bus provide parents of “special needs” kids with a welcome chuckle, a rock to stand on, and a moment of reality held far enough from the heart to see clearly. Featuring works by counter cultural parents, this anthology carefully considers the implications of parenting while raising children with disabilities.

Poets in the White House

You wanna see some fantastic poetry/spoken word/rap, head on over to Poets.org for a White House event from last May.

From the PR email:

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama hosted students from American, Gallaudet, Georgetown, and Howard Universities in May 2009, allowing them to participate in an evening celebrating poetry, music, and the spoken word.

“We’re here to celebrate the power of words,” President Obama said. Words “help us to appreciate beauty and also understand pain; to inspire us to action, and to spur us on when we start to lose hope; to lift us up out of our daily existence—even if it’s just for a few moments—and return us with hearts that are a little bit bigger and fuller than they were before.”

Spoken word presentations included works by Chicago’s Mayda del Valle, Hawaiian poet Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, “Brave New Voices” slam champion Joshua Bennett, and Lin Manuel Miranda, the creator of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical “In the Heights,” among others.

It all reminds me of the days of Camelot, when Jack and Jackie opened the White House to artists, writers and musicians. I am so glad we got The Nitwit outta there!

Enjoy!

Game Four

Dirty Play

Three nights, three games, three pitchers: it was all the same story. Philadelphia pitchers pummeled A-Rod on every one of his first at-bats. The first time, you figure,  maybe it was intentional, maybe not. Second time, you strongly suspect something’s going on. Third time, it’s obvious their pitchers agreed beforehand to hit A-Rod at the start of every game. Even the umpires–who haven’t been all that sharp lately–knew it, and they met for a huddle in the middle of the field. When they broke, they issued a warning to BOTH teams: another hit-by-pitch to anyone, and whoever lobbed the ball will be O-U-T of the game.

If you ask me, Joe Blanton, last night’s vicious pitcher, should’ve been tossed right away. Everyone knew the hit was intentional. The umpires added insult to injury, as the Yankees were the ones who really got punished. They couldn’t retaliate, or they’d lose their ace pitcher, CC Sabathia. I was pissed off all through the game, and could hardly stand the sight of a player in red.

Which brings me to this coincidence of colors: while Yankee uniforms are blue-and-white, the teams I most dislike all seem to wear red-and-white. Boston Red Sox. Angels. Cleveland Indians. And now, Philadelphia. At games played in a red team’s  stadium, the park is a sea of bright red; in New York it’s all blue. The funny part of this is…well, I’m sure I don’t have to spell it out. Blue States, Red States: Conservative/Republican, Liberal/Democrat. Coincidence?

Winning Is The Best Revenge

But the Phillies got their punishment, and in the most productive way possible. Here they were, giving their fans a thrill, keeping up with the Yankees–until the ninth inning, when in a two-out rally Johnny Damon made a play sure to go down in history: after a nine-pitch at-bat that came this close to an out at least twice, he got a base hit, then stole second base…and when he saw nobody was covering third, he ran like hell, and made it. When A-Rod came to bat and got a base hit, Damon scored the go-ahead run. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve seen in baseball; I was screaming and jumping around my living room.

The Phillies didn’t score in the ninth, of course, with Mariano Rivera pitching, and besides, I suspect they were too demoralized. The Yankees won the game, 7-4; the series now stands at 3-1. If the blue team wins tonight, it’s all over but the partying. With Cliff Lee coming back to the pitcher’s mound for Philadelphia, there’s a possibility that won’t happen. But even if it doesn’t, then the Yankees will finish things off the next night–which might be better anyway, since they’ll be back in New York.

What a game! What a team!

Baseball Posts on Dirty Laundry

Maybe I’m overly obsessive, but I feel compelled to write this note for the edification of my readers–so here goes.

Predictably, Dirty Laundry gets a lot of hits to the baseball topic at this time of year. From what I can tell, people go searching under players’ names–Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, etc.–and they’re led to my posts about those specific players. Because of a minor dust-up involving Posada’s catching with one particular pitcher, his name is searched hundreds of times daily. Posada happens to be my favorite player, and I’ve posted about him several times over the years. Thus, people seeking a juicy story of conflict between the catcher and Yankee pitchers end up reading about his shoulder surgery last year, his son’s medical condition, or simply what a great guy he is. I’m fairly certain this is not what readers went looking for.

It’s not my fault! Forgive me! Please!

Oh god, I’m probably making things worse by adding yet another Posada tag to my blog!

See, I told you I’m obsessive. I actually feel guilty about this situation. Also, if you’re looking for stories about Posada’s big crisis, you may not find any, since it’s not that big a deal.

Anyhow, IJWTS I’m sorry if your time was wasted. But do stay awhile…read other posts, about baseball, or motherhood, or sex. Dirty Laundry has something for everyone.

And go Yankees! Tonight’s the night!

The Baseball Playoffs

“They say that baseball breaks your heart, but what they don’t tell you is that it gives you heart attacks.”– Confessions of a She-Fan

This morning I’m breathing with great relief. My stomach is calm, and my nerves have stopped jangling—and all because the New York Yankees won against the Angels last night, ending an extremely tense playoff series. They’re going to the World Series for the first time since 2003, attempting to wrest the championship title away from the Philadelphia Phillies. If they succeed, that title will be, in my very biased opinion, back where it belongs–in the Bronx, where I was born. At last all will be well, after a long strange decade in the world of baseball.

The last leg of this journey was rough—on me at least. I’ve carried a grudge, since 2002 when they defeated the SF Giants, against the Angels–excuse me, the Los Angeles Angels, as they insist on being called, even though they’re in Anaheim and the Dodgers represent the city. Just look at their fan base—very white Americana. Also–a whole other issue–very LOUD. One of my complaints against them are those damn thundersticks their fans bang around during entire games, no matter what’s happening on the field. I don’t know what they sound like up close, but on television the noise is deafening.

A major problem in this series was the umpires, who made what must surely be a record number of incorrect calls. A typical incident occurred when first-base umpire Dale Scott called Johnny Damon out, and video replays clearly showed he was safe. Nick Swisher was called safe on second base on a pickoff throw that clearly beat him back to the bag, then minutes later was called out at third base on an appeal play, after replays of a would-be sacrifice fly showed he had waited long enough before tagging up and running home. Later in the same game, Robinson Cano was called safe at third base after Angels catcher Mike Napoli tagged him while he was off the bag. One suggested solution to the umpire problem is to use instant replay tapes more, but it would slow down a game that everyone agrees takes too long already. In view of all this, MLB has decreed they will use ‘only experienced umpires‘ in the upcoming World Series.

I’ll let you digest that last sentence while my racing pulse returns to normal.

First of all, I would have thought it was a policy already that ‘only experienced umpires’ would be used in the playoffs, at the very least, and that newbie’s would get their training in the minors. Secondly, the powers-that-be are missing an essential point here.

IT’S THE VISION THING.

It is an established fact in the world of ophthalmology that almost everyone’s vision begins fading at around age 40. From the looks of most umpires, they’re well past 40. Lenses harden, cataracts form, little dots referred to as “floaters” dance in front of our eyes. This ain’t rocket science. The solution to bad calls in baseball is right before our aging eyes:

HIRE YOUNGER UMPIRES!

This isn’t age discrimination: it’s part of the job description.

But back to the players: I’d been nervous for days before this series began, afraid the Angels would be a real threat, based on their rep (I rarely watch them play). Imagine my surprise when, in the very first game, they made three errors, and looked like Keystone Cops running aimlessly around the field. They didn’t play quite so badly in subsequent games, but that first one was a joke. Mike Scioscia, their manager, was right on target when he said, simply, “They outplayed us.” Yer darn right they outplayed you!

I have to admit that not every Yankee was fully up to par. Nick Swisher, Robinson Cano, and, most disappointing of all, Mark Texeira, flat out sucked at bat. Their averages tell a sad story. At least these three did redeem themselves defensively, making brilliant plays and preventing the Angels from scoring more than once—but it was Derek Jeter, Johnny Damon, Hideki Matsui, and, most delightful of all, Alex Rodriguez, who carried the day.

And then there was pitching. CC Sabathia was named MVP for his performance. Last night, Andy Pettite held the Angels to just one run in 6 1/3 innings, striking out six and walking one. He now has sixteen postseason wins, the most in Major League Baseball, and in winning his fifth career series clincher he broke a tie with Catfish Hunter, Roger Clemens and Dave Stewart.

Clutch Rodriguez: A-Rod, who’s always bombed during playoff season, suddenly turned into Mr. Clutch Rodriguez, and his sterling performance is generating buzz all over the media. It was a pleasure to see him so focused, so comfortable and confident at the plate, making base hits and home runs, with girlfriend Kate Hudson cheering him from the stands. Behind every great man…

The pleasure of watching the Yankees play great baseball was matched by the pleasure of watching them celebrate. I noticed, during the final two at-bats, that Mariano Rivera’s lips were twitching as if he were suppressing a smile. I was right: as soon as he struck out the final batter, his face broke into the biggest grin I’ve ever seen, as Jorge Posada came running from behind the plate to hug him.  For once I didn’t mind all the replays, as the team’s reaction was shown from every angle, so we saw each and every Yankee going nuts. A divine moment.

One last thing: Along with many other fans and critics, I questioned some of the pitching decisions made by The Other Joe (Girardi). I’m not inclined to trash Girardi this morning—but I’m not sure he’s got the Right Stuff. That’s about to be tested, beginning on Wednesday. I hope I’m wrong.

Sugar Daddy / Sugar Baby

In our ailing economy, even Hugh Hefner is plagued by financial troubles, on top of which he’s also juggling romantic problems, perhaps for the first time in his 80-something years. The combination of the two put Hef into the news spotlight recently—so it seemed a good time to post this slightly revised excerpt of something I wrote for a book on the topic of Sugar Daddy/Sugar Baby relationships.

Hugh Hefner : The Ultimate Sugar Daddy

While Sugar Daddies existed long before Hugh Hefner came along, he, more than anyone else, perfected the art of Sugar dating – and not just for himself, but for every man in the civilized world. The first issue of Playboy sold 50,000 copies, enabling Hef (his nickname since high school) to publish the next issue; he went on to build Playboy into an empire, and himself into a living legend. Beautiful girls of all ages still flock to his side. With the exception of a minority of rigidly anti-porn crusaders, women tend to respect and appreciate Hef, partly because he’s the quintessential gentleman, but, more important, because he pioneered the cause of equal sex rights for women way before anyone else even dared to think about it.  “Playboy,” he once said, “was founded on the notion that nice girls like sex too.”

Like the rest of the economy, Playboy is falling on hard times. It’s a sad state of affairs when an iconic 83-year-old multimillionaire has to lay off staff or go bankrupt – yet that might happen. In addition, Hef’s happy household split up: the three twenty-something blonde Sugar Babies, including long-time girlfriend Holly, all of who had lived with him for years, moved out of his Chicago mansion. A host of new girls jumped at the opportunity to become Hugh’s new Sugar Babies, though, and he’s now living with a fresh new trio of twenty-something blondes.

From its inception, Playboy was revolutionary. It was the first mainstream publication to print pictures of naked women right next to intelligent and trenchant articles of social commentary. A widely popular joke, still told today, was, I read it for the articles. Every issue featured probing stories about prominent thinkers, celebrities, movers and shakers. In the pages of Playboy, President Jimmy Carter confessed to having “lusted in my heart.” John Lennon and Yoko Ono revealed secrets told nowhere else, and the interview was later published as a book. Interviews with everyone from rock stars to world leaders ran for twenty, thirty or more pages. The best contemporary writers vied to get into Playboy: Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Kurt Vonnegut.

Playboy’s chief purpose, however, was as instruction manual for men who aspired to be, like its creator, a carefree playboy. In what are now called “lifestyle” articles, the magazine shaped a universe with Hefner’s taste indelibly stamped on everything in it. Pictorials of swanky homes exhibited up-to-the-minute decorating trends, including Hef’s famous round bed with built-in shelves holding everything he might need while in it…well, except for the one vital element he invited in when he so desired. Men’s clothing, electronic equipment, cars, restaurants…Playboy gave American men a crash course in sophistication. They soon believed that if they furnished their living room with a leopard skin sofa and reclined on it in a smoking jacket, they might turn into a clone of their idol.

Unlike most producers of adult material, Hef is highly esteemed by the publishing industry – and he managed to pull it off while still in his pajamas. Girls still want to be with him, and guys still want to be him.

Hefner donates to anti-censorship groups, sex research institutions, and various kinds of film organizations. He also gives generously to the Democrats. When Sarah Palin emerged from the snows of Alaska into the bright light of public scrutiny, Hef’s assessment was that she’d make a terrific Playboy centerfold. “Imagine what she’s like when those glasses come off,” he said. “It would be a new definition of the word vice in vice-president.” Only Hugh Hefner could get away with saying something like that.

Hugh Hefner trivia:

• A species of rabbit is named in his honor (Sylvilagus palustris hefneri).

• He’s the first magazine publisher to become a major celebrity.

• He had a Genius IQ of 152 in high school but was an ”unenthusiastic” student.

• He was arrested in 1963 for possessing “indecent” photos of actress Jayne Mansfield.

• The first centerfold in the first issue of Playboy magazine, which came out in 1953, was Marilyn Monroe. After Monroe was buried in Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, Hefner bought the vault next to hers. It seems fitting that the ultimate Sugar Daddy will spend eternity next to the quintessential Sugar Baby of all time…

Marilyn Monroe: Sugar Babe Extraordinaire

If America held a Miss Sugar Baby Pageant, the winner would surely be Norma Jean Baker, aka Marilyn Monroe. Unlike most Sugar Babies, Marilyn was focused on achieving stardom, and she didn’t set out to find herself a Sugar Daddy. Rather, she became a Sugar Baby by default, in her life as well as on screen. She attracted wealthy and accomplished men – Yankee Clipper Joe DiMaggio, playwright Arthur Miller, and President John F. Kennedy, to name just a few – who showered her with expensive gifts and outsized attention. Until his own death a few years ago, DiMaggio had flowers delivered to her grave every day of his life.

On the screen, Marilyn was typecast as a Sugar Baby early on. In How to Marry A Millionaire she declared, “I’d rather marry a rich man than a poor man.” The distinction between the woman and the character frequently blurred, at least to her audience. Only after her death did the world learn about the real Marilyn – that she was no ditzy blonde, but fairly intelligent; that she was a dedicated actor whose extraordinary physicality overshadowed her work, which was never taken seriously. Men, of course, adored and wanted her. Women either hated her out of envy, or wanted to be her – or both. Her legions of fans never knew how hurt and frustrated she was being seen only as a sex symbol.

Even when you died, the press still hounded you

All the papers had to say was that Marilyn was found in the nude…

–Elton John, “Candle in the Wind”

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the archetypal Monroe flick, could be taken for a Sugar Baby manifesto. Marilyn plays Lorelei, a showgirl on tour with her stage partner Jane Russell. Lorelei is engaged to a pipsqueak oil man (yesteryear’s version of the techie geek), and Russell, a knockout in her own right, is charged with keeping Lorelei out of man trouble – which, predictably, fails. Pipsqueak’s father, who thinks Lorelei is a cruel mercenary exploiting his son, tries to get rid of her. In their climactic confrontation, Lorelei/Marilyn speaks with pride and self-confidence for all Sugar Babies when she says that wanting money and jewelry doesn’t make her cruel or heartless—after all, she insists, she does love Pipsqueak. She claims the right to use her looks for material gain since, she points out, men use their money to impress girls. So why shouldn’t a pretty girl use her assets?

The movie’s highlight is the song-and-dance number Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. The song could easily serve s the official Sugar Baby national anthem.

Girls grow old, and men grow cold and we all lose our charms in the end.

But square-cut or pear-shaped these rocks don’t lose their shape.

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.

You can see and hear Marilyn sing it. You’ll never be the same, believe me!

Phillies Win National

Congratulations to the Philadelphia Phillies, who crushed the LA Dodgers and now await another crack at the world title. Too bad for Joe Torre, and too bad it won’t be a Dodger-Yankee match–but I’m content with the excitement generated by last year’s champs trying to hang onto the title against…well, I certainly hope they’ll be playing against the New York Yankees, and by all appearances it shall be so.

Meanwhile, the votes are in! Two-thirds of you agreed with me and went for a Dodger-Yankee thrash, while one-third voted for Phillies v. Yankees, and nobody voted for the Angels. Of course, this is based on a pretty small electoral base–despite numerous hits to the post, only four people actually cast votes. Are polls worth putting up? Was the topic not intriguing enough? What do readers think?