Misogynistic dillweeds--a field guide

Recently, I heard about a breed of males called "Incels," or involuntary celibates.  In other words, a group of unpleasant man-children who couldn't get a woman to have sex with them if their lives depended on it.  They chalk up their unpopularity to women going for looks or money, not noticing that it's their attitude and unwillingness to own their behavior that women find off-putting.  (Not to mention the double standard--these men are also the first ones to insult a woman based on her appearance or weight.)
There are so many groups now of men like these, it's hard to keep track.  So, I've taken the liberty of preparing a field guide, based on my own experience and research on Reddit and We Hunted the Mammoth:
"Nice Guy": This man dates occasionally, but not often enough to suit his tastes.  The women he dates tend to lose interest quickly, and start to agree with him that he's not good enough.  Popularized the term "friendzone," and has fallen hard for the idea that if he just acts "Nice," the object of his desire will fall madly in love with him.  Frequently calls coupled men "assholes," as opposed to himself, as in the following: "Women just want to date assholes.  Why don't they ever go out with me?  I'm a Nice Guy."  (This same Nice Guy will castigate the object of his attention as a "bitch" or "slut" when she turns him down.)  Annoying, but relatively harmless.
Pick-Up Artist (PUA): To this man, women are objects to be won by charm.  If that doesn't work, there's always persuasion.  To these men, "no" means "I'm just being shy; keep trying."  Best not to deal with this one without backup.
Red Piller: This man is the Pick-Up Artist on 'roids.  Popularized the term "pump 'n dump."  Spends much time trying to establish himself as an Alpha, dominant over women.  Castigates men who treat women with respect as "betas" and "fuckboys."  To take the red pill means to treat feminism as a destructive force in society.  Avoid. 
Men's Rights Activist (MRA): This chap has either been through a divorce or knows someone who has.  Swears up and down that he treated his wife like a queen, but she may see it differently.  His ex-wife got tired of his bullshit and hired a competent divorce attorney, winning a greater than 50-50 share of time with the children (whom he didn't really pay any attention to until now because parenting is a woman's job, amirite?) plus child support and whatever maintenance the law allows.  Because he feels he owes his ex-wife nothing, he grouses about paying to anyone who will listen.  He will probably avoid women at this juncture, since in his mind, they're only after money.
Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW): These boys don't have a girlfriend, and often don't have a job, either.  This is of course, due to Teh Evul Feminists, who insist that women can do anything men can.  Believe MRA and Red Pill statements about women, often due to an inability to relate to women as people.  Have chosen to remove themselves from the dating game altogether because they aren't Fortune 500 CEOs with a hot trophy wife.  What they fail to understand is that they aren't really missed.
Incels: From "involuntary celibacy."  Incels are manchildren who, again, can't get a date (do I detect a running theme here?).  So, to make up for it, they want to put all the "sluts" (read, women who don't have sex with them) into a subservient role.  Loudly deride women for not staying in their "place," and espouse a hatred of women.  Idolize Elliot Rodgers, the guy who shot six women.  Handle with caution.

In praise of pickiness

Whether you call it "single" or "between relationships," I am at that fun little place called Not In A Relationship.  Kind of sucks.
What's even worse is the advice from the "smug marrieds."  Those people who have gone through life with a grand total of five minutes between relationships their entire lives.  They always trot out that trite line about "every pot has a cover" (what if you're a griddle?).  Or else they hand out the same three pieces of advice: "You need to get out more." (I'm in a male dominated field.  How much more "out" should I get?)  "Have you tried online dating?"  (Yes, I have.  Do you know how many online dating profiles are complete fabrications?)  And, my all time favorite: "You're too picky."
You're damn right I am.
Here's what "not picky" got me.  When I came to Brooklyn, I was 24 years old.  In other words, I was already staring down the barrel of spinsterhood.  Also, I was a BT, which meant that I was already getting "redd" to people deemed undesirable--not that anyone actually made these introductions.  So, I navigated the "single scene" knowing I had two advantages: 1. I was the youngest person in the room by about a decade and 2. I was the novelty.  I attracted attention, mostly from divorced men pushing Social Security eligibility.  If I dated even one man under 40, I would be surprised.  But hey, don't be picky.  Besides, I knew that within a year the novelty would wear off and I would lose the edge I had.
It was in this environment that I met Mr. X.  Sure, he was 55 to my 24.  Sure, he was overweight and not the most attractive specimen.  But hey, he had to have a kind heart to be giving rides to people and feeding stray cats.  And kindness was all that matters.  Besides, I shouldn't be picky.  After all, I wasn't particularly pretty either.  So we started dating.  And when he lost his temper and screamed at me, I overlooked it.  It was probably my fault anyway.  When I found out that he had been arrested for possession of a controlled substance, I overlooked it.  My past wasn't exactly spotless either, and past is past right?  When he tried to sodomize me during our engagement, I wrote it off as a misunderstanding.  I mean, he did stop when I called him on it.
Guess what?  My marriage to Mr. X was marked by his alcoholism, frequent emotional abuse, and eventually rape.  But hey, I made it down the aisle, and that was all that mattered, right?  I hadn't been picky.
I deserve so much better than that.  So do all singles who get that line thrown at their heads.  It doesn't matter why I reject someone's advances.  I'm allowed to set standards for myself.    There are far worse things than being single.  And being in a bad marriage is numbers 1-100 on that list.

Summer blockbuster season--survival of the tritest

Recently, I had the opportunity to see an incredible film about a woman who is a true American hero.  I am speaking, of course, about the biopic Megan Leavey. 
If you haven't seen this movie, I suggest you do.  Like right now.  It probably won't be in theaters much longer.  It opened eighth at the box office, despite an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  One week after opening, it's down to a single screening per day.  The theater had less than 20 people in it.  But what do you expect for a film that was barely promoted and nobody's even heard about?  (I wouldn't have seen it either, but Thing 1 loves dogs.  And since the story was about a Marine and her bomb-sniffing dog--it was kind of required viewing.)
Why do certain movies end up in theaters for ages and others fade out or never even make it?  Why was a film based on the Roald Dahl classic The BFG only in theaters for a few weeks while Boss Baby lasts for months?  Why did the recent release of The Little Prince, an English dub of a French film based on the Saint Exupery story (one of my favorites, incidentally) not even make it to theaters at all?  One week before it was to open, Paramount pulled it, and sent it straight to Netflix.
My guess is we live in the land of the focus group.  Movie companies, competing with streaming services in a pinched economy (going to the movies for a family of four can easily cost $100 between tickets and concessions) will only put their marketing and distribution efforts into films with massive returns.  And right now, that seems to be mostly in big-budget action movies based on the interests of Gen-X and early Millennial males.  Transformers.  Fast and Furious car chase films.  DC and Marvel superheroes (not my brand of geekery, to be honest.)  Most of the previews and theater screens seem to betaken up with some variation on one of these themes. 
But at least there is some hope.  I eagerly anticipated the release of The Great Gilly Hopkins, a film that should have made it (cast included Kathy Bates, Glenn Close, Octavia Spencer and Julia Stiles--not exactly names to sneeze at.)  Other than a few sneak previews, the movie never saw the theaters.  However, to my delight, it turned up on Netflix.  So did The Little Prince.  So will a hundred other films you never heard of or paid much attention to when they were in theaters, but start to look better after you binge-watched the newest season of Orange is the New Black and are wondering what else is on.

Breaking Anne--A Review

*Spoilers ahead!
One of my favorite book series growing up was Anne of Green Gables.  I loved the imaginative, ebullient, intelligent redhaired heroine and the other characters that populated her world: shy Matthew, practical Marilla, gossipy, generous Rachel Lynde, Anne's friends, including the loyal Diana Barry, and of course the cocksure Gilbert Blythe, enemy turned rival turned friend turned love interest (spoiler alert--she marries him.  They have six kids together.)  I read all the books and own the Kevin Sullivan miniseries.  So, naturally, when Anne with an E came to Netflix, I had to watch it.  Especially since it was created by Breaking Bad creator Moira Walley-Beckett.
BIIIIG mistake.  They took my favorite character and put her in Bizarro World.
Walley-Beckett wanted to focus on Anne (played by Amybeth McNulty) as the abused orphan, delving into her backstory to create trauma.  Fans of the book will know that Anne was orphaned in infancy and passed around to two different foster homes.  In the first, her foster father was a violent alcoholic.  In the second, her foster mother had twins three times in succession.  Both foster parents used Anne as childcare, even though she was a child herself.  After her second foster father died, Anne spent a few months in an orphanage until she was placed with the Cuthberts, who originally wanted a boy.  As a result of this level of neglect, Walley-Beckett wrote Anne as a broken character.  Rather than being the dreamer of dreams who must express ideas that are too big and beautiful to hold in, Anne talks and imagines to escape frequent flashbacks of abuse.  In this world, Mr. Hammond keels over from a heart attack while beating Anne.  In this world, the town of Avonlea shuns Anne for her orphan status.  Anne herself is no help in this regard.  Her energy is frenzied, as if she is afraid to stop talking or moving out of fear.  She comes off as less eccentric and more unhinged, collapsing to the ground in agony upon hearing that the Cuthberts wanted a boy.  While McNulty is a competent actress, she still struggles with the bad writing.
Aside from taking liberties with Anne's character, the writers also took many liberties with the story, making it as bleak as the iron-cold settings it was filmed against.  The main conflict of the novel was resolved within the first eight chapters, and the rest of the novel is a coming of age stories filled with many charming vignettes of Anne's growth.  Few of them survived the writing process of the series.  There was no playing the lily maid.  No walking the ridgepole of the roof.  No dive-bombing Aunt Josephine.  No liniment cake.  No accidentally dyeing hair green.  Instead, we are treated to the following:

• Anne begging pennies in a train station (just to drive home that she was unwanted--we got that!)
• Lifelong conservative Marilla Cuthbert attending a suffrage meeting (more up Rachel Lynde's alley)
• Anne antagonizing the Cuthbert's hired farmhand (great way to make a first impression on potential foster parents)
• Anne telling her classmates about Mrs. Hammond repeatedly trying to escape her husband's "pet mouse," who lived in his front pocket and got her pregnant with all those twins.  (Because what children's book is complete without marital rape?)
• Gilbert becoming an orphan (It wasn't bleak enough already?)
• Matthew attempting suicide (Completely out of character.  Matthew was not only a religious man, he was the sort of person who would work to his last breath.)
• Aunt Josephine going from acerbic-tongued spinster to lesbian in mourning (While I don't mind the representation, I rather like the acerbic-tongued old lady.  Besides, why can't we have asexual characters if we're going to represent?)
• Anne's first period.  (At least Marilla didn't go Margaret White on her.)

If Moira Walley-Beckett wanted to create a series highlighting the fate of orphans, home children and foster children in the late 19th century, fine.  I'm all for it.  Many of them did suffer abuse and neglect, and even under the best of circumstances were forced to be servants and farmhands while still children.  Just leave my favorite book out of it.

Latte with a side of poverty?

When I got my first job out of college, I predicted the economy would collapse under its own weight eventually.  This was in 2003.  In San Diego, where I lived at the time, both housing prices and rents were skyrocketing.  I had what would be considered a "good" job (eight-to-five, permanent, with benefits), and the best I could afford was rent on a converted shed and a 12-year-old rattletrap Honda that I somehow managed to keep alive to go back and forth to work.  Neighborhoods that had been considered unlivable slums only a couple of years earlier were becoming too expensive for even the middle class.  Many of my coworkers were buying homes over an hour away in Riverside County.  They were signing subprime mortgages (which, even at the young age of 21 I could see were a terrible deal) and encouraged me to do the same.
I wonder how many of them were able to keep their houses after 2008.
The Great Recession was almost ten years ago, and according to many economists, didn't last very long.  Great.  Only most people in my age cohort are cobbling together part-time service sector jobs and side stints as Uber drivers, sharing apartments, putting off marriage and having children, and not really enjoying any real prosperity.  The only costs that seemed to have dropped significantly is the cost of gasoline.  Housing is still unaffordable, and tuition costs have tripled since 1999.  We've even coined the term "jobless recovery" to explain it.  The State of The Union is Not Good once again.
And we don't get much sympathy from those who should know better.  The Boomers lived through the "stagflation crisis" of the 1970s, and their parents lived through the Great Depression.  Instead of commiserating with us, or fighting to make things better, all we hear is a lot of blame.  "It's the IPhones."  "It's the lattes."  "It's the avocado toast."
Right.  Because unless you can afford a house, you don't deserve happiness.
According to The Economist, the ratio of housing to income is still over 100 percent.  There was a slight drop after 2008, but not enough of one to be significant. 
But maybe we Millennials are wasting our money on high-end coffee and techno toys.  Lets look at, for example, an IPhone.  At first glance, $700 for a phone is a lot of money, especially for someone crying poverty.  And especially when many people get new phones every two years.  But let's break that phone down, dollar wise.  $700 over 24 months is less than $30 per month.  That's less than the cost of an electric bill, a week's groceries, or a dinner for two in a mid-priced chain restaurant.  Suddenly that phone looks a lot less expensive.
But what about those lattes?  A five-dollar a day Starbucks habit has got to be breaking into the bottom line.  First of all, unless you're buying a daily Frappucino, you're not spending that much.  A tall Caffe Latte is $2.95 plus tax.  So about $3 a day.  Multiply that by five days (assuming that this is purchased on the way to work), and that's $15 a week.  Over 52 weeks that comes to $780 a year.  The median housing price in the United States is $199,800.  Assuming the 20% down payment you need to save before you can even think about a mortgage, cutting the lattes will get you there in 51 years.  Given that the median life expectancy is 78 years, and assuming you start saving at age 18, you will buy that house when you are 69 years old.  Does it sound like a worthwhile sacrifice?