The Wandering Mama

I like to write about pop culture, travel, dining out, road trips and motherhood. In other words, lots of random thoughts.....enjoy!

[thewanderingmama]

Villisca: The Perfect Storm - Reverend Kelly's walk (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/p9FBCnj6mX A small white house in a peaceful farming community in Middle America at the beginning of the 20th century. Who knew it would become the site of one of the worst crimes in US history and whose dark legacy carries on into the 21st century. This a synopsis of events before and after the Villisca Axe Murders based on historical accounts and facts.

[thewanderingmama]

Villisca: The Perfect Storm - The man hiding in the bushes (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/7T2j6UaAgX A small white house in a peaceful farming community in Middle America at the beginning of the 20th century. Who knew it would become the site of one of the worst crimes in US history and whose dark legacy carries on into the 21st century. This a synopsis of events before and after the Villisca Axe Murders based on historical accounts and facts.

[thewanderingmama]

Villisca: The Perfect Storm - The man on the town square (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/QXlEKB91dX A small white house in a peaceful farming community in Middle America at the beginning of the 20th century. Who knew it would become the site of one of the worst crimes in US history and whose dark legacy carries on into the 21st century. This a synopsis of events before and after the Villisca Axe Murders based on historical accounts and facts.

[thewanderingmama]

Villisca: The Perfect Storm - A peaceful Sunday (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/BUx45OWxbX A small white house in a peaceful farming community in Middle America at the beginning of the 20th century. Who knew it would become the site of one of the worst crimes in US history and whose dark legacy carries on into the 21st century. This a synopsis of events before and after the Villisca Axe Murders based on historical accounts and facts.

[thewanderingmama]

Queen of the World - Fanboys (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/iF3kbhrB1W Leonardo DiCaprio helps uncover a shocking secret about the love of his life and favorite leading lady Kate Winslet.

[thewanderingmama]

Villisca: The Perfect Storm - A Terrible Stillness (on Wattpad) https://my.w.tt/5vz01moB1W A small white house in a peaceful farming community in Middle America at the beginning of the 20th century. Who knew it would become the site of one of the worst crimes in US history and whose dark legacy carries on into the 21st century. This a synopsis of events before and after the Villisca Axe Murders based on historical accounts and facts.

[dentistdrummer]

The early days of Roger Taylor in his first band called The Reactions isn’t he cute?

[leonardc-dicaprio]

Leo, Brad, Margot, and Tarantino in Cannes 2019.

[leonardc-dicaprio]

Having a good time, Old Sport ?

[thewanderingmama]

The Fresh Hell that is the Super Bowl for St. Louis and the country

As I sit here inside my warm, cozy apartment as the Arctic vortex swirls outside, the phrase “fresh hell” keeps swirling in my head. Fresh cold air.....the dead of winter.....and time once again for the Super Bowl.

But this year’s Super Bowl has a certain feeling and vague stench of unpleasantness attached to it. Once AGAIN football fans will be forced to watch the penultimate game of American sports featuring Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. But many will also be forced to root for the team on the other side of the field, the Los Angeles Rams. By the way, remind me again where the Rams played for the last 20 years before moving back to the West Coast? Ah yes, St. Louis.....my home town, 400 miles away and going through the same fresh hell as I am here but not just because of the weather. But because of the dreaded match of their former team and the very team that 17 years before, killed a potential dynasty in the making. Super Bowl XXXVII saw the shocking defeat of the then-St. Louis Rams, 14-point favorites, by the underdog and upstart Patriots. A then-unknown second year backup named Tom Brady had stepped in for the injured Drew Bledsoe and led the Patriots all the way to the promised land in New Orleans that February night. It marked the beginning of the end of the Rams’ glory days in St. Louis. As a stunned Kurt Warner, Isaac Bruce, Marshall Faulk and other Rams players quietly slipped off the field at the end of that game, they watched the NFL crown a new prince that would soon become king and a new team that would become a dynasty. Instead of Kurt Warner and the Rams becoming perennial Super Bowl favorites and winners of 4 more titles over the next 15 seasons, it was Brady and the Patriots. The Patriots also crushed two other potential dynasties along the way: the Philadelphia Eagles and Donovan McNabb in 2005 and the Seattle Seahawks and Russell Wilson in 2015. Kurt Warner would get one more chance at a Super Bowl several years later with the Arizona Cardinals but that would be it. 

As Brady, his grumpy genius coach Bill Belichick and a litany of Patriots players raised banner after banner in Gillette Stadium at Foxboro, Rams fans watched their team flop and flounder and become the joke of the league, all while their lone Super Bowl banner and small collection of division and conference champion banners collected dust in the rafters. Warner, Bruce, Faulk and other star players fled in disgust. Coaches and coordinators came and went like customers through a convenience store. And the TransWorld Dome, their once-crowded and thunderous home arena, became a desolate scene featuring half empty seats or in some cases, those same seats filled with more fans of the opposing teams than Rams fans. 

The downward spiral eventually led the ugly estrangement between St. Louis fans and Rams’ ownership, one Mr. Stanley Enos Kroenke, born in St. Louis and raised in Columbia, Missouri, only 2 hours away, yet a man who is more concerned about making money, owning property and making more money than loyalty to his hometown. St. Louis made legitimate and gallant attempts to keep the Rams in the Gateway City, yet Kroenke sees and thinks nothing but dollar signs. By 2014, as news filtered out that Kroenke had purchased a $2 billion tract of land in suburban Los Angeles, the writing was on the wall. Kroenke had every intention of moving the team back to LA and no intention of even giving St. Louis the time of day. And to rub salt into the wound, Kroenke lied to his fellow NFL owners and as he was slamming the door behind him, trashed the entire St. Louis metro area as incapable of supporting an NFL franchise. 

So you can maybe now understand a little bit why people in St. Louis are a little bitter. It’s like St. Louis is a grizzled older divorcee on “The Bachelor” or some other cheesy dating show being forced to choose between two bitchy and annoying ex-girlfriends. I think the divorcee would have more fun just going to a bar and hanging out alone while nursing a couple of beers. Never mind the fact the two teams playing in Super Bowl 53 got there through poor refereeing calls (or complete lack thereof) and other annoying circumstances, this is the Super Bowl St. Louis and most of the country did NOT want. It should have been Saints versus Chiefs, which would have been a much more compelling match. So we’re stuck with rooting for one team that has an apathetic fan base more concerned with going to the beach and making their plastic surgeon appointment versus a team led by known cheaters and a crybaby douchebag who thinks he’s god gift the football world. So NFL, don’t be shocked if the entire state of Missouri, along with Louisiana, are viewership blackouts for you. Many people in St. Louis have utterly sworn off the NFL and are just happy to wait out the fresh hell that is left of winter in anticipation of the warm weather return of baseball. 

[thewanderingmama]

Happy Titanniversary!

This past week saw the 20th, yes.....20th anniversary of the original theatrical release of “Titanic.” It seems hard to believe it has been two decades since James Cameron’s romantic action epic sailed into movie theaters and stole (and broke) the world’s collective heart. You can officially feel old if you can clearly recall “Titanic” becoming a worldwide hit. I’m 43 years old (same age as Leo, bonus!) and other than “Star Wars” and “E.T.,” and I truly feel there have been no movies in my lifetime that have become a cultural phenomenon the way “Titanic” did. Before my lifetime, the only other movies that measure up are perhaps “Gone With the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Godfather,” along with a handful of others. But since 1997? Nothing has even been in the same building as “Titanic.” 

We all know the crazy story of its success and the landmark numbers. It was the first movie to make over $1 billion at the box office. It was the Number 1 movie at the box office for a staggering 15 weeks. It tied the record for most Academy Awards won, 11 total, including Best Picture. Fans saw the movie literally a dozen times in the theater. And it was the first movie to be released on home video (ah remember the good ol’ 2-tape VHS set in the pre-Blu Ray days?) while it was still playing in theaters. And its leading man and lady, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, were instantly transformed into pop culture icons. I take this moment to brag about Leo and Kate as my Generation X peers, because at age 23 and 22 respectively, both did a great job handling the sudden fame and craziness that came with “Titanic” mania. I seriously doubt a young actor and actress today of the same age would be able to carry “Titanic,” let alone handle the fame that came with it. I truly believe Kate and Leo were born to play the roles of Rose and Jack and that their incredible onscreen chemistry is the main reason for the film’s amazing success.

Sadly in the two decades since “Titanic” was released, we have become a much more segmented and even more cynical society. The events of September 11, which in many ways, was the Titanic sinking of the 21st century, changed our attitudes and perspectives. This, along with the rapid onset and development of the internet and social media since “Titanic” has warped our viewpoints. In 1997 you couldn’t tag yourself and friends at the movie theater or Tweet about how much you wept your eyes out when Jack slipped into the dark, icy waters of the North Atlantic and you couldn’t take a selfie standing next to the “Titanic” cardboard cut out in the theater lobby. The success of “Titanic” was because of good old-fashioned word of mouth and even without the luxury of cell phones. You had to wait until you got home from the theater to get on the (gasp! ancient history here) land line and call your friends and rave about it. I recall my friend Mandy, who I was jealous of for getting to see “Titanic” on opening night, calling me up the next morning and saying in a dreamy voice, “Oh my god Paula, it’s the best movie I’ve ever seen in my life.” And I believe in order to get the attention and appeal of today’s pablum-brained moviegoers, James Cameron would have had to have added dinosaurs, vampires, aliens or super heroes or perhaps a combination of all four, to the story line. But “Titanic” needed none of those previously mentioned features to get the world to fall in love with his film. It was just a good old-fashioned romance and love story that just happened to be set on the most famous ship in the world. Yes we knew the ship would sink and there was a good chance one or both of the main characters would not make it, but people still went to the theaters to sob into their popcorn over the tragic romance of Jack and Rose. 

For a while, about 10 years ago, it was cool to hate “Titanic” and brag that you  had never seen it. And I know there are people to this day who have never seen “Titanic,” but then again, I have no room to criticize as I’ve never seen “Avatar,” which ironically enough was also directed by James Cameron. So in a way Cameron topped himself and in the process obtained a personal wealth that now rivals Bill Gates. But even “Avatar” didn’t become the pop culture sensation “Titanic” did. I honestly cannot even name the leading man of “Avatar” and I know of no lines like “It’s been 84 years.....” and “Draw me like one of your French girls....” and “I’m the king of the world!” from “Avatar” that became iconic on the level of “May the force be with you.”

Twenty years is the usual cycle at which nostalgia happens and “Titanic” has now reached that point in its lifetime. People are appreciating the movie all over again, perhaps remembering a more innocent and simple time. Who would have thought a movie that was out during the time of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal would be longed for? But when you have terrorist attacks, mass shootings and a egomaniacal buffoon as president making news headlines daily, it makes you long for the days of late 1997 and early 1998, when “Titanic” ruled the world. Leo was our king, Kate was our queen and we all wanted to live in their castle. And we did. We really did.

[thewanderingmama]

Bring on the ‘Bad Moms’

If you are an American mother of any age, walk, no RUN to the nearest movie theater, plunk down a few bucks and go see “Bad Moms.” It is required viewing for any mother nowadays. Don’t go just for the silliness and raunchy jokes, go for the perspective and mind-clearing messages. Amid the uproarious laughter, there actually are some great nuggets of knowledge to glean from the film.

“Bad Moms” gets right to the point in a perfect balance of eloquence and humor and that is that today’s moms, whether they are raising toddlers or teens, are driving themselves and their kids crazy. The constant scrambling and rushing of moms to get the kids ready for school, then TO school, then to their jobs, then the after-school carousel of piano lessons, dance classes and baseball games then home to try to throw together a healthy meal to an unappreciative family, then getting ready to do it all over again the next day, is all portrayed in the film. But Mila Kunis’ character and the heroine of the film, Amy Mitchell, doesn’t have just all the stuff just mentioned to deal with. On top of that, she must deal with the super-anal and overly perfect PTO president of her kids’ school, Gwendolyn, played by Christina Applegate. Who knew Kelly Bundy would grow up to become a school marm? Gwendolyn has the mothers of the school in a near panic-mode over the possibility of the kids ingesting sugar, flour, gluten, GMOs and artificial flavors and colors at an upcoming bake sale. 

Amy finally has the gall and the guts to stand up and say NO. Joining forces with fellow moms, the sex-crazed Carla, hilariously portrayed by Kathryn Hahn, and the sweet but somewhat clueless Kiki, played by Kristin Bell, Amy vows to be a “bad mom” and run against Gwendolyn in the upcoming PTO president election. The newfound trio of friends rebel and among other things, trash a grocery store, throw a wild “get to know the candidate” party that rivals the antics of the Deltas in “Animal House” and shirk their maternal responsibilities. But as I laughed I was also amazed at how the shirking of these said responsibilities was exactly how my brother and I, along with everyone else in our age group and older, was raised. They even have a name for it now - “free range parenting.” I chuckled as Amy’s children whine when she refuses to make them breakfast or help them with their homework. I laughed with nostalgia longing in my heart as Amy squeals around the corner in her husband’s 1970s muscle car to the strains of Foghat’s “Slowride” as the kids go flying across their seats, no seat belts to speak of. If you were born before I would about 1980, this is how we were raised. No seat belts, no complicated car seats, no bicycle helmets and no worry about food allergies or falling off 20-foot tall metal and wood (NO PLASTIC) playground apparatuses that could have killed us. As long as we had our vaccines, were sufficiently fed and clothed, had a quarter in our pockets to call on a pay phone and were home by dusk, our parents did not panic or care where we went or what we did. There was no pressure to be perfect students and for parents to have their child involved in 18 different extracurricular activities. It was almost sad in the movie to see Amy’s young daughter Jane, at only 9 years old, being driven neurotic over whether or not she will make the soccer team or if she will get into college if she does not study her Mandarin Chinese lessons enough. I find it oddly fascinating that us parents of today were raised to be laid back kids who believed, if you tried your best but didn’t always win, that was good enough, that we didn’t have to be the best at what we did, yet we are backpedaling in many ways and turning our kids into neurotic messes. Where did we lose our perspective? Where did we lose our appreciation for a simpler, slower-paced life in which we left school in the afternoon and just went outside to play with our friends until dinnertime? As Amy Mitchell alludes in the movie, it doesn’t matter if your kid grows up to be a star student or athlete, if they are an asshole and not a nice person, then you’ve already screwed up raising your kids. Why do we have this societal pressure to have our kids involved in and being the best at everything while hovering over them like spy drones? I hope the millions of moms and other parental figures that are packing movie theaters to see “Bad Moms” walk away with a new perspective. Let your kids fail and stumble once in a while. Let your kids figure things out for themselves. Let them eat cake and ice cream for dinner once in a while. Let them fall, get scraped and cut up then get back up and try it again. Let them decide when and if they even want to play soccer or the cello or be in the science fair. Just let them be kids for God’s sake. As long as you give them the basic framework and ideas and more than anything, teach them about how to treat others, they will turn out just fine. 

[thewanderingmama]

A perfect storm in Villisca

A little white frame house in a small farming community. A dark, cloudy and moonless night. A strange traveling minister with a tendency for window peeking and late night strolls. Streetlights turned off. 

No, this is not the synopsis of a Stephen King or James McElroy novel nor a Scooby Doo episode. This was the setting of a real murder. A mass killing that even by today’s jaded standards was pretty gruesome. On that dark night 104 years ago, sometime after midnight, someone entered the home of Josiah and Sara Moore in the town of Villisca, Iowa and using an axe, bludgeoned to death the couple, their four young children (Herman, Katherine, Boyd and Paul) and two overnight guests, sisters Lena and Ina Stillinger as they slept. The crime was discovered by concerned neighbors and relatives the next morning when they noticed the family was not outside doing their chores. A compromised crime scene and the rudimentary investigative methods of the time period fated the murders to never be solved. There were many suspects, among them Reverend George Kelly, the afore-mentioned traveling minister, as well as a local transient named Andy Sawyer and a hit man hired by Senator Frank Jones, a local banker and business rival of Joe Moore with a personal vendetta against Moore for supposedly having an affair with his daughter-in-law. 

Time went on - two world wars were fought, radio, TV, computers, nuclear bombs, space travel and the Internet were all invented. The Charleston, jitterbug, rock and roll, punk and disco all came and went as music fads. America had 18 different Presidents. The Ottoman and British empires ceased to exist. The Chicago Cubs still did not win a World Series. And the mystery of the Villisca axe murders continue to this day. Brave groups of paranormal investigators and thrill seekers spend the night in the restored house, now on the National Registry of Historic Places. I made my first visit to the house in the summer of 1999, when some of the first of many paranormal investigations were conducted. I have heard children giggling in the middle of the night as I sat in the kitchen. I felt a weird, jelly-like invisible wall blocking my entrance to the upstairs attic crawl space. But as haunted as I am by the possible spiritual activity that goes on in that house, I find myself more haunted by what the actual events leading up to the crime were. 

Like how tragically ironic it was that Sunday afternoon June 9, 1912,  before the murders that Katherine invited her friends Lena and Ina to spend the night after the end of the Sunday school year special program at church simply because the sisters were scared to walk in the dark to their grandmother’s house at the other end of town. I think about what the weather was like - cooler than normal for early June in the Midwest, with clouds and a humid dampness leftover from thunderstorms the day before. I think about the killer possibly lurking in the attic after he gained entry while the family was at church, or maybe he was lurking in the loft of the Moores’ barn in the backyard. I think about the moon cycle - a waning crescent - that even if it had been a clear night, would have just been a faint sliver of light low in the sky. I think about how a silly quarrel between the Villisca city council and local power company rendered the town almost completely pitch black thanks to the streetlights being shut off. I think about the mysterious man who was seen walking up on the town square that Sunday evening by the town marshal Hank Horton and his night watchman Mike Overman and who did not stop when they asked who he was. I think about the unknown person who was heard walking up a back fire escape and rattling the doorknob of the telephone office, waking up the night operator Xenia Delaney, from her nap at the very odd hour of 2 a.m. I think about the neighborhood dogs that became restless and barked sometime in the night, their sixth sense telling them something was very wrong. I think about Mike Overman, the night watchman, sitting on a park bench deep in the shadows of the town square, but whom apparently heard or saw nothing unusual during the night. I think about Reverend Kelly, walking down that pitch black street on one of his nocturnal strolls in an attempt to calm his restless mind and what he may have seen and heard as he walked past that little white house at the edge of town. I think about the echoes of the train whistles that may have covered up the sound of the murders as they happened. I think about how the killer may have slipped away out the front door in the faint gray of dawn’s light just as the Moore’s next door neighbor Mary Peckham was walking out her back door to start her Monday morning laundry. I think about the bobbysoxers and young soldiers who drove past the house in their Packard and the greasers in their 1957 Chevys and the hippies in their VW Beetle vans and the stoners in their El Torino muscle cars and the Valley Girl and preppie boy wannabes in their Camaros in the successive decades and stared at the house, wondering what really happened in that house 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 years before. I think about how the friends of two young girls who grew up in the house in the 1970s and 80s, who, even though the house was modernized and looked completely different, with its vinyl siding, were still scared to go trick or treating to the house on Halloween. 

The night of June 9-10, 1912 was quite simply the perfect storm - the perfect and unfortunate setting for a clearly mentally disturbed person who had the audacity to slaughter 8 innocent people, 6 of them children who had barely begun to live their lives. 

[thewanderingmama]

All hail Lady Pearl

Earlier this week I attended a very awesome concert given by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts as well as Heart. The 50-(or dare I say almost 60-) something vixens put on a great performance, playing all their hits from throughout their career. But as I sat in my seat at CenturyLink Center in Omaha in 2016, I could not help but think that this all really started back in Port Arthur, Texas back in the 1950s. The reason any female rock star, white, black, Latino and everything in between after the early 1970s exists is because of one amazing woman: Janis Lyn Joplin, aka Pearl. Though her three-year career is not much more than a brief brilliant flash in the whole history of rock and roll, she left an impression and inspired two generations of female rockers. Ladies in the likes of Joan Jett, Ann and Nancy Wilson, Stevie Nicks, Bonnie Bramlett, Pat Benatar, Sheryl Crow and Pink, as well as her contemporaries Cher, Grace Slick, Cass Elliott, Tina Turner, Marianne Faithfull and Dusty Springfield, all must tip their cap to the shy, artistic misfit from a stinky oil town in southeast Texas. Janis was different for her time. In late 1950s Texas, she was not afraid to speak out against rampant racism, or to wear loafers and trousers to school instead of dresses. Janis’ female classmates wanted to be cheerleaders and beauty queens, then in her words, get married right out of high school and have a brood of children. In contrast, Janis preferred to paint, sing and read books by Ginsburg and Ferlingetti. Janis wanted to be different and she wanted to be real. By 1963, after a stint at the University of Texas at Austin, she found herself in San Francisco, immersed in the music, culture and society she felt most at home with. After a near-fatal speed overdose, she reluctantly returned to Port Arthur and tried to live the straight and narrow life, eschewing drugs and alcohol and forgoing her beatnik hairdo for a beehive. She even brought home a fiance named Peter so her parents would be happy. But things were not meant to be - the engagement with Peter fell apart and Janis felt the strong lure of California yet again. By 1967 she was a star, performing on TV and at the Monterey Pop Festival and was the undisputed rock queen of the counter culture movement. Her untimely demise at age 27 (there’s that darn number again!) from a heroine overdose in 1970 left the lingering question of “what if?”  What is tragic even more than her death is that Janis never got to see the great female rockers who carried on her legacy. Little did she know a shy 18-year-old aspiring singer-songwriter from Phoenix named Stephanie Nicks whose band once opened a concert for her would become the rock queen of the late 1970s, or that two sisters from Seattle, Air Force brats who had grown up loving music and joined an all-male band called Heart would also become stars, or that a 16-year-old Philadelphia native, Joan Larkin, with dreams and aspirations of starting an all-girl rock group, would follow in her footsteps. Janis would have been cheering them on the whole time, empowering her fellow dreamers who dared to be different and rebel. Even the MOR pop chanteuses of today, such as Adele, Taylor Swift, Kelly Clarkson and Meghan Trainor are grateful for that lady little with a loud, powerful and wailing voice that knocked down so many walls so long ago so women could finally have a voice in the rock world, not just the guys and their guitars. All hail Lady Pearl. 

[thewanderingmama]

Stuck in the middle.....

We need a new word in the English language. No not something as useless as “selfie” or “staycation,” but something very useful and specific. What exactly do you call a famous person who is not quite a legend but is definitely not a newcomer??? Why do we have words for people on opposite ends of the spectrum in their careers but nothing for those who are for the lack of a better term, stuck in the middle? I’m racking my brain trying to figure it out but cannot come up one. I don’t know how Hollywood or the music world defines a legend. Is it when you are inducted into a Hall of Fame or are bequeathed with some sort of Lifetime Achievement Award? Is it based on the number of Oscars or Grammys or Tonys you win or how many of your movies are box office hits? 

“Legend” can be an arbitrary word too, as to use that old standby, the masses are asses. The word is thrown around too much these days, so you end up with clueless half-wits who would classify the likes of Kim Kardashian and Niki Minaj as living legends next to the likes of Clint Eastwood or Paul McCartney. 

But as for that pesky middle term that is so hard to define, I will use some of today’s prominant stars as examples. For an easy start, let’s look at my homeboy, my favorite actor of all time and recent Oscar winner, Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s going on about 25 years in terms of his acting career, so we know he’s definitely not a newcomer. Some fans would perhaps now push him into the legend category since he finally snagged that much-anticipated gold statuette after four previous nominations. He’s old enough at 41 to have an entire generation of younger actors and actresses coming up behind him to have looked up to him as an idol. But at the same time he himself has his idols and actors 30 years older than him - Jack Nicholson, Tom Hanks and Robert DeNiro (all of whom Leo has been fortunate enough to share the screen with) to look up to. 

How about Leo’s longtime friend, best cheerleader and two-time costar Kate Winslet? She’s been making movies since the same year as the O.J. Simpson trial and has racked up an impressive six Oscar nominations and 1 win, along with a couple of Emmys, Golden Globes and a Grammy and the leading lady role in that little movie about a big boat that sank a long time ago. She’s been quoted praising her own idols and fellow British dames, Helen Mirren, Judy Dench and Maggie Smith but herself has been praised by her younger co-stars like Evan Rachel Wood and Shailene Woodley. She’s just a year younger than Leo, so like him, enough time has passed for a new generation to follow in her wake. 

To point to the music world, how about some middle love for my gal Pink? She’s been around since the turn of the century, used a flip phone in one of her early video and speaking of that topic, actually had her VIDEOS PLAYED ON MTV - and has outlasted a lot of her contemporaries. Honestly, where has Britney Spears been, Christina Aguilera is happy to toil on “The Voice,” and Jessica Simpson spends her days Tweeting photos of her wagging and sticking her tongue out. Of the four singing divas in the “Lady Marmelade” video, Pink has had the best career, racking up 3 Grammys, among other hardware, selling over 100 million albums and being rated as the top female musical artists over the past decade. Meanwhile, Mya and Little Kim, along with her pre-plastic surgery facial features, have all disappeared into the memory ether of the early 2000s along with Carson Daly and Sisqo. At the same time, Pink’s influence has been strong enough over the last decade and a half to inspire many of the female artists who came after her. Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift and one of my other favorite current singers, Adele, have all singled out Pink as a major influence on their careers. Pink has been around long enough to have inspired a then-teenage Adele when she performed in a guest appearance at the British arts school Adele attended in back in 2003.

I’ve listed 3 good examples but there are so many more “middlers” who deserve a title darn it! Can we get a nice, flattering term for the likes of Julianne Moore, Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Rob Lowe, Missy Elliott, Lenny Kravitz, Steve Buscemi, Dave Grohl and so many others too numerous worth mentioning?? People who are definitely hanging around and are racking up great resumes as they go along but just are not quite old enough to be considered “legendary.” If you have a word you can come up with please let me know because this is a silly thing to be worrying about at 3 in the morning, as interesting as it may be......

[thewanderingmama]

RIP to the indoor shopping mall

OK I know I’m late to the game but I just want to add my condolences to the American shopper. Over the loss of the likes of Karamel Korn, Hickory Farms, Pass Pets and County Seat. Who or what you may ask? These were just among the few of the great chain stores that once occupied the bastion of American consumerism from about the mid 1960s to the early 2000s. I speak of the indoor shopping mall. In case you haven’t noticed, shopping malls have been going the way of the dinosaur, the Edsel, Clear Pepsi and Zima. Now granted the last three were actual consumer flops that never did manage to take off and gain favor. In major cities all across the nation, there has been a steady and startling amount of mall closures in the last decade. Many more malls, if not already closed, are pitifully clinging to life. I know of a few very good examples. 

For the past 15 years I have lived in the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area and have seen the decline of two major malls here. The first is Crossroads Mall, which even though it’s located at the busiest intersection in town (72nd Street and Dodge) is a shell of its former self. It clings to life support only because Target, Barnes and Noble and Sears have decided to stick around. The rest of the mall is a literal ghost town, with a completely empty and forlorn second floor leads to an equally forlorn parking garage. Chipped paint, blowing trash and rusty metal doors at the mall’s main exterior entrance show just how far it has fallen. A cheesy Czech-American museum that is only open on weekends occupies the same space where a bustling Chili’s restaurant once stood. A few miles away, across the river in Council Bluffs, right along Interstate 80, sits what remains of Mall of the Bluffs. In its heyday, which was still in full swing when I first moved to the area in 1999, the mall boasted a Target, Walgreens, Panera, Old Navy, a movie theater, Barnes and Noble, Auntie Annie’s (did you really think I’d pass up anyone who makes soft cinnamon pretzels??) and other great stores. Now, sadly, Mall of the Bluffs trudges along with Planet Fitness as its one anchor “store,” while the former Dillard’s has become the worlds’ largest garage sale. A few recognizable retailers, such as the Children’s Place and Bed, Bath and Beyond, still manage to stagger along while literally one entire wing of the mall is empty and no longer heated. The kids’ indoor playground, with its shabby carpet and seating area, is held together with blue duct tape while some of the actual playground items are literally falling apart and just look old. 

Back in my hometown of St. Louis, the former Crestwood Plaza, once a favorite of my mom and I in the late 80s, sits dark and empty. Meanwhile, on the other end of town, Northwest Plaza, once the largest shopping mall in the St. Louis metro area, stands as a retail graveyard while it pathetically awaits its most likely fate, demolition. Even the once great Chesterfield Mall, where I spent more Friday nights during my childhood than I care to remember, is just a collection of womens’ clothing and shoe stores, with a few jewelers added in for good measure. It sorely lacks the variety of stores it once had, which included the afore mentioned Karamel Korn, Pass Pets and Camelot Music. It even boasted a cafeteria-style restaurant, York Steak House, whose main architecture feature was dark, railroad-tie looking wood throughout its large, dimly-lit dining room. I swear when you walked back out into the mall after eating there you felt like a vampire emerging into the sun. 

But Chesterfield Mall’s paucity of store variation or Mall of the Bluffs’ downturn, although disheartening, is easily explained. It’s a little something called the internet, you may have heard of it. Since the turn of the 21st century and the advent of websites like eBay, Amazon and others to numerous to name, the shopping mall has become an UN-necessity. Why get in the car and waste gas and battle traffic driving across town to some mall when all you have to do is open an app on your phone or click your laptop mouse a few times and BOOM, that new pair of Sketchers or that Hoverboard is on its way. But no retail sector suffered more because of the internet than the record store. Gone are the days of flipping through LPs and CDs. You like that new Justin Bieber single or can’t wait for Nickelback’s Greatest Hits (one of the biggest oxymorons in the history of music as we know it) to come out? No problem, thanks to iTunes and Spotify. Bang, instant download done in five minutes.

 The American shopping mall was THE place to hang out and be seen if you were a 70s baby, 80s kid and 90s teen like me. While the kids of today bury their heads in their smart phones as they’re walking down the street and get hit by cars in the process, us yesteryear young’uns actually sat in the food court and (gasp!) TALKED to one another while LOOKING (double gasp!) at one another. Once we had downed that slice of grease with some bread mixed in passed off as pizza from Sbarro and were sugared up from that extra large Orange Julius, it was time to trip around the mall, its hallways filled with clouds of Aqua Net from girls primping just in case they saw that cute guy from school they’d been crushing on. Now we just sit behind a computer screen and agonize over coupon codes and shipping costs and wonder if that dress is aquamarine, turquoise or cerulean. The mall was also a great place to people watch too. I suppose we have subplanted that nowadays with YouTube and shows like “Ridiculousness.” It was still better to see it live in person, I don’t care how HD and detailed that Vine clip is!! 

So raise that still-dripping-with-grease slice of pizza and cup of Julius in a toast to the good old days of the indoor shopping mall. A time and place where under one roof, you could find both a “Who Farted?” truckers cap at Spencer’s and right next door, a freshly-baked chocolate chip cookie at Mrs. Field’s. Like my grandparents and parents’ generation lamented over the loss of the downtown multi-story department stores and Woolworth’s Five and Dime, my generation will have the indoor shopping mall to bring a tear to our collective eye. 

[thewanderingmama]

Saying farewell to the Crawleys

Viewers said goodbye and farewell to the Crawley family, aka Lord and Lady Grantham, Lady Mary, Lady Edith, the Dowager Countess et al with the series finale of “Downton Abbey” on PBS last week. We also said goodbye to their extended family, that being the cadre of “below stairs” servants who had tended to the family over the course of the show. From the beloved Anna and Mr. Bates to the lovable curmudgeon Mr. Carson to the less than likable Mr. Barrow (but you always found some little odd sliver of sympathy for him from time to time), the servants were as essential to the Downton estate as the lordly occupants. 

I got on the “Downton Abbey” bandwagon a bit late, curious as to what was the big deal about what I perceived as a boring and stuffy Masterpiece Theater show I could never relate to. But I decided to give it a try in the middle of the second season, first catching up on the inaugural season by plowing through episodes on Hulu. And I was delighted and surprised. Far from being an expected display of huffy, stiff British upper lips walking around with their noses scraping the ceiling, the characters turned out to be, well likable and interesting. I loved the way the show was filmed and written in two separate styles for the two different sets of characters. While Lord and Lady Grantham and their daughters lounged and enjoyed their tea with hushed tones and smooth camera changes, the downstairs kitchen was noisy, clattering and busy, filmed with a hand-held camera and darting about with quick flashes. But somehow it all melded together and worked. 

I was amazed at how quickly I became invested emotionally in the show, from the heartbreak and shock at the tragic death of the youngest Crawley daughter, the beloved Lady Sybil, of preeclampsia shortly after giving birth, to the romantic roller coaster of oldest sister, Lady Mary, with her many suitors awaiting. I worried if poor Lady Edith would EVER be happy, laughed at the acerbic asides of “Granny,” the Dowager Countess and once again cursed at the TV when Mary’s beloved husband Matthew was killed in a car crash the same day Mary gave birth to their son George. It was starting to get to be dangerous to have a baby on “Downton Abbey” at one point. But again, it all came together and worked. One way or another the Crawleys found their way through trying times and had their loyal servants standing at their side, whether it was to be a confidant (Anna to Lady Mary) or to pour the wine at dinner. Being a history buff, I also liked how the show wound the events of time, whether it being the Titanic sinking, World War I, the Russian Revolution or the liberating and changing times of the Roaring 20s. One way or another, each character was affected by the events, whether directly or indirectly, whether they wanted to or not (read: Mr. Carson grumbling about the presence of modern conveniences like the telephone or refrigerator in the downstairs quarters)

Some critics have said the last episode of “Downton” was a bit disappointing, but I enjoyed it. Yes it did seem a bit rushed and forced, trying to tie up all the loose ends and story lines. And I could see it coming from 10 miles away that Anna would go into labor during Lady Edith’s wedding reception (yayyy, she did end up happy after all!) but it all worked out. Nobody died, the estate did not get beamed up into an alien spaceship and it did not turn out to be some kid staring at a snow globe all day long’s imagination (just look up the “Tommy Wesphall Universe on Wikipedia). It was just a nice, clean wrap up to one of the better television series in the past 30 years.