Be Grateful for Friends Next Door

Christmas at the Gaffneys was always such a wondrous event. First of all, I  marveled at how Elsie and Charlie, their parents, could keep track of what each of their seven children-- Danny, Charlie, Tommy, Bobby, Mary, Ann and Ellen -- all wanted. How each seemed to get exactly the right presents, which always included clothing. My own, conversely, was the small, Jewish clan in a neighborhood of large, boisterous Irish-Catholic families. The Deegans, the Mulvehills, the Nortons, the Gaffneys and us.

My favorite part of the holiday was appearing at their back door on Christmas Day evening, knowing there was a delicious turkey or ham carcass in the refrigerator and that I could just slip in and pick the meat right off the bones! I loved their tree in the living room. I loved how Charlie, home from Yale, would sit at the piano and play holiday tunes for everyone. I loved the joking and teasing. I loved being included. There was always a new record for the girls. We would run upstairs and steal away for hours, listening, singing, laughing in the room the three girls shared. Some years it was comedy and we would begin the ritual of memorizing George Carlin's or Cheech and Chong's routines. Later on, it was Dylan or Harry Chapin and we'd study the album covers, pouring over the lyrics, singing our hearts out.

Joyous, wonderful times.

Yesterday morning, while preparing for our holiday feast, I received news that Ann Gaffney was murdered. Bludgeoned to death by her drug-addled tenant in Hurley, NY. There will never be a Christmas I will not think of her. There will always be a hole where that joy once was. But what I will think of is something her sister said in her eulogy: may the angels wrap their wings around Ann..and around all of those loved ones we have lost this year. And may we smile in remembrance of all of our friends next door. G-d bless.

An Infuriating Year

This has been one infuriating year.

Ten years past the fall of the Twin Towers, three years post-Lehman and the apocalypse of the financial system as we knew it, we stand hard-pressed to imagine anyone not touched in the last twelve months by some outlandish, ridiculous, mind-blowing, devastating, distressing, demoralizing, upending, brain-bending, off-putting, mouth-dropping, peculiar, uncharacteristic, wild, dramatic, off kilter shit. 

Certainly, Messrs. Gaddafi and Bin Laden would agree. Not a good year.

How about Arnold and Maria and his now-teenage Latino love-child? Chao bello!

How was that bed in a cage, Mr. Mubarak? I guess it might be better to sleep in your jammies through your trial than actually face it.  Gabrielle Giffords shot in the head.

SONY and so many in Japan—not a good time.

Arab spring, Muslim rage. Tahrir Square in Egypt. Syntagma Square in Athens.  

Wildfires in the South and E. Coli in our sprouts.

And even with her husband’s pants down, Madame Strauss-Kahn still can’t understand why the Americans are so provincial.

Elizabeth Taylor, Betty Ford, Steve Jobs, Andy Rooney, Amy Winehouse, Christopher Hitchens, my Mom, Nick’s Dad.  All renegades. All persuasively contrarian people. All gone this year.  Must be some party there with the Freshman Class of ’11.

Yup, 2011.

Started for us with a great adventure: the prospect of a move to Prague…again.  Michael was accepted at the International School. Toyota gladly took back our leased car. We hired movers. We found a lovely home in the heart of the old city. We gave up our home in South Pasadena. Then, just two weeks shy of packing, our move was abruptly cancelled. Seemed they needed Nick in the US more than in Europe.  “Would it be a hardship for you to stay?” they asked him.  No house, no car, no school…but “no hardship” we said. “SCCREEEEEEEECH” went our proverbial wheels.

With only weeks to find a house before the start of school, we landed in yet another area in Los Angeles—this time in Sherman Oaks. It’s our third California neighborhood in the five years we’ve been here. Beautiful home; least favorite community.

What a year.

And yet…the need to remember that the sun will set, the moon will rise and there will be a new tomorrow has never seemed more important. Oooohhhhmmmmmmm.

We need to think about those memorable moments that made us smile.  Two Royal weddings inspired us this year with ceremonial pomp and circumstance almost as much as the ubiquitous Kardashians repulsed us with their unnecessary opulence.

My husband celebrated his one-year anniversary with Kit Digital, which  (since so many of you ask) defines itself as a global company providing end-to-end software and service solutions to manage video assets for its clients. “What?” you ask.  Just suffice it to say it’s a “next generation” company using old generation software, media, sales and computer geeks to sell software programs and services to companies that want to get their videos on all those many, many different platforms people use today.

Quite a year.

I finished a screenplay that no one’s bought. Counted over 1000 rejections from companies that never even called back yet claim to need people with exactly my skill-set and experience.  And took the GRE test for entry into graduate school after studying from “Math for Morons” and the “Idiot’s Guide to Acing Exams” to little avail.  Do I feel depleted? Yes. Defeated, no way.

Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the launch of HBO in Hungary this year, along with nearly one hundred others, was a personal highlight. 

Now it's onward to a new beginning: this year I plan on entering a Master’s Program on the path to getting my PhD in Education. I’ve been spending more and more time in the classroom with Michael, guest lecturing at colleges in Multicultural Marketing and participating in various parent advocacy and activist groups.  I have not gotten so much out of anything in years as I do the gratification of teaching.

So what else is in store? Nick and I will celebrate 10 blissful (and at times not entirely blissful!) years on January 1. My son turns nine and we’re sure will continue getting the hang of piano and tennis. Logic and experience point to a move on the horizon. What can we say? We are, after all, Urban Nomads. Peripatetic entrepreneurs seeking our next game-changing opportunity, our next challenge.

With that in mind, we wish you a successful 2012 in which your dreams become your realities.  Don’t forget to smile and “Stay foolish!” (Thanks Steve Jobs …)

So Long Twenty-Eleven!

Twenty- eleven has been an infuriating year.

Ten years past the fall of the Twin Towers, three years post-Lehman and the apocalypse of the financial system as we knew it, we stand hard-pressed to imagine anyone not touched in the last twelve months by some outlandish, ridiculous, mind-blowing, devastating, distressing, demoralizing, upending, brain-bending, off-putting, mouth-dropping, peculiar, uncharacteristic, wildly dramatic, off kilter shit. 

Check out the headlines:

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Among 17 Shot in Assassination Attempt, Six Killed

At Least 8 Die in Australian Flooding

Bombing in Moscow Airport Kills At Least 35, Wounds 168

Earthquake Strikes New Zealand's Second Largest City

Massive 9.0 Magnitude Earthquake and Tsunami Devastate Japan

Earthquake of 6.8 Magnitude Hits Myanmar

Japan Equates Nuclear Incident with Chernobyl

Series of Tornadoes Devastate Southern States

One of the Deadliest Tornados in U.S. History Hits Joplin, Mo

Toxic E. Coli Outbreak Linked to German Sprouts

Wildfires Rage Through East Arizona and New Mexico Wildfire Burns Near Nuclear Facility

The Atlantis Begins Final Mission

Bin-Laden dead.

Gaddafi Shot.

And today, Chris Hitchens died. His editor said it appropriately:  those who read him felt they knew him. That is true of how I feel.

We have lost a group of game-chagning renegades, all of whom were contrarian and brilliant. Hitchens, Liz Taylor, Andy Rooney, Steve Jobs, Amy Winehouse, my Mom and my father-in-law. Must be some party going on up there...

Whew.

Wage Gap Leads to Age Gap...Oh Crap!

This week I received three polite job rejections, all for positions that are equal to or less “demanding” (at least on paper) than what I had been expected to (and did) accomplish in past positions.  All located in the city in which I live. All in the field of media. Vice President of Business Development, Chief Marketing Officer for a sports-oriented start-up, Head of Brand Marketing for a Spanish-language content developer. The problem is not so much that I was not chosen. I generally handle rejection pretty well. The problem is that I wasn’t even in the running. I was rejected without so much as a call back or an interview. I was totally marginalized.

Throughout my career, that “nasty” reminder that I was a “woman” and somehow not as qualified has reared his ugly head. It became a fact of life.  My skin thickened at an early stage of my career. It’s something I believe all women who have been successfully employed in power positions have experienced at least once.

Want an example? The most blatant reminder took place at a Board meeting consisting of members from four Hollywood studios.  After leading a two-year transformation of a cable channel from underperformance to profitability, I was told, in front of the Board, when the subject of hiring a full time -rather than Consulting- Managing Director came up, “Karen, we can’t consider you. You are a WOMAN! This is Mexico.”  That occurred in 1996. The guy who blurted that out in front of his embarrassed colleagues still has his position – at FOX.

That all being said, I am not one of these people who “cry over spilled milk.”  I do not believe just because we are women, we need special treatment. What I believe is if you are good, you are entitled to rise to the top. If you cannot execute, you lose that privilege, whether you are male or female. Period. And, the fact is that by 2018, nearly 49% of the US workforce will be female; so there are plenty of women out there working.

But what I am saying is something is amiss.

So now, just when I thought I had a handle on the whole “woman” thing, after decades of increasingly more executive positions and successes, I find myself not in the running at all. I am forced to contend with something else entirely: age. 

Crap. And here I thought fifty was the new thirty! Boy was I wrong!

Women over 40 make up 24.3 percent of the U.S. population, the 2010 census found. In comparison, in Hollywood, for example, union casting analysis show actresses over 40 years old get 12.5 percent of roles for television and film. Men of that age are also about a quarter of the population but nearly equal their ranks in casting.

According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, the wage gap also tells a not-so-pretty picture. In 2010, women are still only making 77% of what their male counterparts are earning. Seventy-seven cents to every man’s dollar.

So, think of it: we always knew about the wage gap. Now, baby, think about the age gap. Fifty is still fifty. Deal with it!