Who's Your Favorite Baldwin?

This picture was taken last week. It's Stephen Baldwin along with local talk show host, Shannon Burke. Stephen was the speaker at a downtown leadership prayer breakfast that my sons and others host each year. He did a great job.

Stephen is the born again, conservative republican Baldwin.

Daniel is the celebrity rehab, bad boy Baldwin.

Billy is the successful, married to the same wife forever Baldwin.

This morning I read a long article in the New Yorker about Alec, the oldest and most famous Baldwin.

Billy says in the article that if you want to know how Alec feels about his brothers, here's an example.

Alec once wrote a screenplay where he and his brothers were to portray a family of gunfighters.

As Billy tells it:

Basically it was: Daniel's the outlaw, I'm (Billy) the riverboat gambler who gets all the (women,) the shallow, good looking sap; Stephen's the village idiot; and he's (Alec) the #*!# hero. ...the one who saves the day in the end.

I think I'd call Alec the complicated one. We all know that he's a divorced dad. (We've all heard that famous and painful voice mail to his daughter.) On the other hand, he's a smart, funny, extremely talented actor, writer and director and very passionate about life - and his brothers.

He's also perpetually unhappy.

Lorne Michaels, the SNL producer and model for Alec's character on "30 Rock" said to him:

Alec, you have one of the best writers in television (Tina Fey) writing this part for you. It's shot in New York, where you choose to live. You work three days week, you get paid a lot of money, you're getting awards. It's a great time in your life. It's an all-good thing. And, if you were capable of enjoying it, it would be even better.

Some might say that Alec should go the way of his brother, Stephen. But Alec is a non drinking, church going, praying, vegetarian democrat.

My take on the Baldwin brothers (and their two sisters) is that they're much like many other big families - only rich and famous.


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I Blame Jack Sparrow

Have you heard about the pirates off the coast of Somalia? They're hijacking, among other ships, Saudi Supertankers.

But these are, apparently, a new breed of pirates. They don't harm their captives. In fact, they hug and kiss them and let them call their families on their international cell phones.

Instead of menacing names like "Pegleg" a pirate spokesperson calls himself "Daybed."

How are they managing to board these huge ships? The ships are not armed. They've been instructed to fight off the pirates with fire hoses.

These new and improved pirates are not interested in the booty aboard the ships. They just want money - and lots of it.

I think Disney has made this pirate business way too attractive.


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Smoke Gets in My Eyes

AMC's popular series "Mad Men" features some great looking men. I've never seen the series but I like John Slattery's looks. I'd let my hair go white if I thought it would look like his.

"Mad Men" also features smoking.

They've had to let the public know that , no, it's not tobacco the actors are smoking. They're smoking herbs. But they're pretending to smoke tobacco to but true to the pre 1970s era.

Back then everybody smoked. They smoked in restaurants and movie theaters and at work. All smoking all the time.

Once, years ago, when my son was hospitalized in North Carolina while we were on vacation, they let our family eat in the doctor's dining room. It was blue with smoke. When the doctor met with us in his office he chained smoked.

This week I watched two absolutely wonderful old movies on TCM. "To Have or Have Not" with Humphrey Bogart and Loren Bacall in her very first roll. It's worth watching the movie just to see her do her little jiggy dance at the end. But the whole movie is good. Lots of similarities to "Casablanca."

But an interesting aside is that they both chain smoked during the entire movie.

Last night on PBS I watched "Laura" with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and the great Clifton Webb. Also an excellent movie. But Dana and Clifton never put the cigarettes down. Gene, playing Laura, was dead for most of the movie so I don't remember her smoking so much.

I found the smoking distracting and disgusting in both movies.

I grew up in a family where everybody smoked. They smoked while they were cooking and during meals. I remember wanting to crawl up into my dad's lap but being repelled by the constant cigarette smoking.

I never tried it - and I'm so happy that I now live in a smoke-free world.


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And a Sense of Humor Helps

This morning in my Sunday school class we discussed hope and faith and how important it is for people our age to share these concepts with younger people in these hard times.

Somebody mentioned how important it is, as well, to keep your sense of humor in times of great stress and hardship. That reminded me of a visit my husband and I had just a few weeks before he died. I shared the following with the class.

Our son called one afternoon to say that his boss had just flown in from Atlanta expressly to pay his respects to my husband - knowing that he was near death. They were on the way in from the airport.

Well, see, the problem was that we'd just gone out to lunch and my husband was sitting on the couch in his favorite pink dress shirt, looking pretty darn spiffy.

So I explained to my husband that our son's boss would probably be disappointed that he came all that way to find him sitting in the living room with his doggy bag from the restaurant.

So, I got him into the wheelchair, took him to his room and got him into his hospital bed. No time to get the great looking shirt off so I just tucked the sheet up around his chin.

Our son and his boss showed up. (He's actually a very nice guy.) He paid his respects and left.

Afterwards I told my husband what a great sport he'd been. He wasn't able to speak much by that time but he let me know that it was fun for him.

The next time my son's boss flew in was for the memorial service.


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Edgy Knowledge Cards

Frequently I buy books from a mail order bookstore. Many of their things are artistic, deep and a bit edgy.

A while back I ordered, among other things, something that was described in the catalog as "Women of the Old Testament Knowledge Cards." I was planning to give them to a conservative relative whom I love a lot.

When they arrived early this week I thought the box looked edgy. I got a little nervous so I carefully opened it to peek at the cards.

uh oh!

The pack was shrink wrapped so I could see only the front of the first card "Eve" and the back of the last card "Queen of Sheba."

But it was enough to know that they won't be leaving the house.

The artist is a former member of the Benedictine order and the writer is a professor at Hartsford Seminary so the cards aren't X rated but....

...let's just saw that the Old Testament is full of sex and violence, much of it directed at women, and the cards depict this in somewhat graphic ways.

I tore open the package to check them out. Since Monday I've read a few of the cards each morning.

They've impacted me deeply and spiritually. I'm being reminded of ancient women who had absolutely no power, who sometimes lived brutal lives, but were, many times, able to rise up and be strong anyway.

When Clinton and Palin talk about the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling we all need to remember that it started with some of these ancient women.


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Whoops!

We're all feeling bad about the lady astronaut who dropped her tool bag in outer space a few days ago.

I have two observations.

First, women have a pretty keen sense of what to drop and what to hang on to when things get a little chaotic. If a woman has groceries in one hand and the baby in the other and stubs her toe and starts to lose her balance - she'll drop the groceries every time.

Second, we're pretty flexible about tools. In a pinch I use chewing gum to hold a picture straight or plug a hole in the wall.

So if astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper thought to take with her a paper clip, a hanger, some duct tape and chewing gum - I'm sure she'll be fine without her tool bag.


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Who Can I Blame?

A couple I love, relatives actually, are having marriage problems.

All day yesterday I was trying to think of who (whom) to blame.

At first I thought it was those darn gays. Although this couple lives in a conservative state, they didn't pass a "no gays can get married law" like we did here in Florida (because we all know that it's those gays that are causing our marriages to flop.)

But I don't think blaming gays will help in this situation.

Then I thought of what another friend who's husband had left after years of a bad marriage said to me when I tried to get her to go to counseling.

Why should I go to counseling? The Devil breaks up marriages!

But I don't think blaming the Devil will help this situation.

I don't know what the answer is. But I do know that this smart, funny, talented couple has blessed countless other people throughout their long marriage. We'll all be poorer if they don't make it.

But what's even more important is they're both suffering and they both have personal issues to deal with. (Don't we all?) I think she's up to it. I don't know about him.

But we do know that this life - that God gives us - is all about new beginnings.


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